The Anabaptist Network?

The Anabaptist Network comprises people from all over Britain and from a wide range of church backgrounds. Some are simply names on a mailing list, interested in keeping in touch and knowing about activities of the Network. Others are much more fully involved in exploring the implications of Anabaptism for discipleship, mission and church life in contemporary culture.

Although the Network includes some Mennonites and members of a Hutterian bruderhof, it is comprised mainly of Christians from traditions that do not have direct historical links with Anabaptism. Anabaptist values and perspectives have begun to impact Christians from Catholic, Anglican, Quaker, Methodist, Baptist, United Reformed, Pentecostal, House Church and other backgrounds.

The Anabaptist Network has made visible this growing interest in Anabaptism and has encouraged further exploration. It has been a rallying point and an opportunity for dialogue. New members joining the Network have frequently expressed a sense of “coming home” to a tradition that embodies their own convictions and provides a framework that integrates these. Some have also been relieved to find that they are not the only ones attracted to the Anabaptist tradition and concerned about the issues it raises. And many have been pleased to discover that we are a Network, not an institution, an informal coalition rather than a movement, and relational rather than denominational.

To read more about some Anabaptist Network members, see Coming Home: Stories of Anabaptists in Britain and Ireland

Core Convictions

The Anabaptist tradition has been wary of creeds and fixed statements of faith, concerned at imposing interpretive grids on Scripture and of conveying the idea that there is no possibility of our understanding developing in fresh ways. But Anabaptists have produced various Confessions, setting out not a comprehensive statement of beliefs but a summary of distinctive values, convictions and practices. These statements are always provisional and subject to review in light of fresh insights.

In the late-1990s the Anabaptist Network developed a statement of its Core Convictions. The Network is a diffuse and diverse community, with no official membership or criteria for involvement. Not everyone involved would necessarily sign up to everything in this statement. But these Core Convictions summed up what some of us who had been involved in the Network for some years believed we were committed to. In the spirit of the Anabaptist tradition these are offered as provisional rather than final and we are committed to reviewing and revising them from time to time.

What follows is the current version (revised in January 2006 in light of comments at our May 2005 residential conference, at which the convictions were explored in various ways). For those interested, the previous version can be found below.

1. Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.

2. Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centred approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.

3. Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalised Jesus, and has left the churches ill-equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving.

4. The frequent association of the church with status, wealth and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted, aware that such discipleship may attract opposition, resulting in suffering and sometimes ultimately martyrdom.

5. Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multi-voiced worship. As we eat together, sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender and baptism is for believers.

6. Spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation, and working for justice.

7. Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding non-violent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society, and between nations.

A series of articles in Anabaptism Today explains the significance of these convictions:

The Core Convictions: A Study Guide

Soon after the Anabaptist Network was formed in 1991 some of those involved began to formulate our core convictions. Why were we both inspired and challenged by the Anabaptist tradition? What issues did it help us to see more clearly? On what aspects of Christian discipleship did this tradition have distinctive perspectives?

Anabaptists have often been suspicious of ‘statements of faith’, especially where these are regarded as definitive and are used to exclude others or as a grid that allows only certain interpretations of Scripture. Anabaptists have preferred to frame ‘confessions’ that are:

* Not comprehensive but focus on key issues
* Not final but open to revision and development
* Not only about belief but also about practice
* Not composed by one individual but emerging from communal reflection

A very early example – only two years after the first believers’ baptisms in Zurich – is the Schleitheim Confession (1527). In this, representatives of Anabaptist communities in Switzerland recorded their agreement on seven convictions that helped to shape and define the emerging movement. This confession did not contain everything the Swiss Brethren believed, but it spelled out their current understanding of controversial and pressing issues of discipleship.

The core convictions of the Anabaptist Network should be understood in a similar way. They highlight particular issues, priorities and commitments. They address a particular social and ecclesial context. They comprise a community document that is open to improvement and correction. They encourage action rather than mere assent. And the fact that there are seven core convictions (like the Schleitheim Confession) is coincidental!

Between 1992 and 2004 the Anabaptist Network produced a journal, Anabaptism Today, which carried articles and book reviews. A series of seven articles explored the meaning and implications of the second version of the core convictions. These articles are no more definitive than the convictions themselves but are attempts to interpret their significance and encourage interaction.

The current text is the third version. At our residential conference in 2005 we spent 48 hours reflecting on the convictions, exploring their implications through Bible studies, seminars, drama and role play. We invited everyone there to propose alterations and additions, some of which were incorporated into the current version. Our intention is to live with this version for a while, but we are already gathering comments from our regional groups and others that will inform the next revision.

Over the past few years several of our regional groups have used the core convictions as a basis for conversation – especially in the early meetings of a new group. Some have used the articles from Anabaptism Today as a resource; others have developed their own resources and study material. One or two recently have asked for study material to help them engage with the convictions. What follows is a response to this request.

There are eight sessions in this study guide – designed for group study but amenable also to personal study. Sessions 2-8 explore each of the core convictions in turn. The first session is an optional extra for those interested in some historical perspective.

Session 1

1. Compare the Schleitheim Confession with one of the historic creeds of the church – such as the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed – or with a contemporary statement of faith – such as the Evangelical Alliance’s statement or a denominational statement of faith.

  • What differences do you notice in scope, language and intention?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?
  • Is the Scheitheim Confession compatible with the creeds?

    • 2. The Schleitheim Confession addressed issues Anabaptists were facing in the early sixteenth century. It reflected their political, social, economic and ecclesial context as well as their theological convictions – a movement of mainly poor and powerless people who were liable to persecution.

  • Which of the issues it addresses still seem important?
  • Which no longer seem so relevant – or are hard even to identify?
  • In what ways does the content of the Confession reflect its context?
  • How much does its tone and use of Scripture reflect its context?
  • Might its attitude towards government be different in a democracy?

    • 3. Creeds tend to give the impression that they are timeless but, like confessions, they reflect the political, social and economic context of the generation in which they were written and the concerns of those who framed them.

  • In what ways does the historic or contemporary creed you have looked at reflect its context and the priorities of those who framed it?
  • What issues still seem important and what issues are missing that are really important today?
  • Is the language more or less helpful than that of the Confession?

    • 4. Although they accepted the historic creeds, Anabaptists have been wary of creeds in principle for several reasons:

  • They can act as grids that force biblical interpretation in certain directions and in practice exercise greater authority than Scripture.
  • They can function as definitive and final statements that discourage and inhibit theological reflection.
  • They can give the impression that correct belief is more important than faithful behaviour.
  • They can be used to exclude people rather than inviting conversation.

    • How legitimate do you think these concerns are?

    5. Anabaptist confessions are:

  • Not comprehensive but focus on key issues
  • Not final but open to revision and development
  • Not only about belief but also about practice
  • Not composed by one individual but emerging from communal reflection

    • How significant are these features?

    6. Read through the core convictions of the Anabaptist Network.

  • Is this a creed or confession – or something else?
  • How do these convictions reflect their context (Britain in the 1990s)?
  • How do these convictions reflect the concerns of those who framed them?
  • What is missing from these convictions, and why?
  • How does this document differ from the Schleitheim Confession?

    • Session 2

    Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. What evidence is there – in your life or your church – that the teaching of Jesus has been taken seriously rather than being marginalised?

    5. Verna Dozier has written: ‘When the church chose to worship Jesus rather than follow Him, we lost much that was threateningly radical about this disturbing person.’ How do you react to this claim?

    6. How can those who want to follow the example of Jesus avoid legalism and counter the charge that this is ‘salvation by works’?

    7. Does the question ‘what would Jesus do?’ help or hinder those who want to follow Jesus?

    8. If you endorse this conviction and the commitment it contains, in what fresh way will you follow it through in the next month?

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    Session 3

    Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centred approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. Choose one of the following subjects and test out the claim that starting with Jesus rather than fitting his teaching in to the rest of Scripture makes a difference:

  • Leadership and authority
  • The role of women in the church
  • Tithing and giving
  • Responding to hostility

    • 5. If we encourage community Bible studies or interactive alternatives to sermons, how can we avoid these being no more than a ‘pooling of ignorance’?

    6. What is the role in our churches of those who have received theological education? How can we value them without allowing them to disempower others?

    7. If Jesus is the ‘focal point of God’s revelation’, how should we read and apply the Old Testament? How can we avoid marginalising either the Old Testament or Jesus?

    8. What practical steps can you take to ensure biblical interpretation is not divorced from application?

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    Session 4

    Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalised Jesus and has left the churches ill-equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. How do you regard the ‘Christendom shift’ in the fourth century – as a courageous attempt to Christianise society, as unfaithful compromise with empire, or something else?

    5. What are the gains and losses as Christendom comes to an end in western culture?

    6. Which vestiges of Christendom do you regard as inappropriate and unhelpful – in church or society – and how can they be removed?

    7. How do you answer those who ask why, if Christianity is true, so many Christians have behaved so appallingly over the centuries?

    8. Now that the church is once more on the social margins, what new opportunities do we have?

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    NB: Further resources for this session can be found at www.postchristendom.com and www.anabaptistnetwork.com/node/293

    Session 5

    The frequent association of the church with status, wealth and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to vulnerability and to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted, aware that such discipleship may attract opposition, resulting in suffering and sometimes ultimately martyrdom.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. Which damages the church’s witness most – its association with status, with wealth or with the use of force?

    5. In what ways is the principle of ‘religious liberty’ different from a liberal secular doctrine of ‘toleration’?

    6. What does it mean to be committed to vulnerability in contemporary culture?

    7. Persecution is the experience of numerous Christians in other parts of the world, but rarely in the West. How do you interpret 2 Timothy 3:12: ‘everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’. What kind of discipleship might provoke persecution today?

    8. In what practical ways are you, or is your church ‘good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted’?

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    Session 6

    Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multi-voiced worship. As we eat together, sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender and baptism is for believers.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. Is there anything distinctively Anabaptist in this conviction – either the particular aspects of church life mentioned or the combination of features?

    5. What is the role of food in building Christian community and in mission?

    6. Believers’ baptism was a ‘crunch issue’ in the sixteenth century, signalling a shift from territorial churches to believers’ churches. Is it still such a crucial issue in post-Christendom?

    7. How can we develop practices of mutual accountability that are liberating and life-enhancing rather than intrusive and oppressive?

    8. What practical steps can your church take to enable young and old to value each other, learn from each other and engage in mission together?

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    NB: Further resources for this session can be found at www.anabaptistnetwork.com/anabaptistpractices

    Session 7

    Spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation and working for justice.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. What are the marks of contentment, and in what ways can contented individuals and communities offer a counter-cultural witness today?

    5. Is anything less than ‘having all things in common’ radical enough to enable us to resist individualism and consumerism?

    6. In what practical ways can your church demonstrate care for creation and model simple living?

    7. Investigate the biblical model of Jubilee (especially Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61). How might your church apply the principles of jubilee?

    8. ‘Working for justice’ in society was difficult for the persecuted Anabaptists in the sixteenth century. Many Anabaptists today are passionate about social justice. Some are involved in various initiatives in wider society, while others believe modelling an alternative community is the priority. What do you think?

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    Session 8

    Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding non-violent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society and between nations.

    1. Reflect quietly on this conviction and then (if you can) share with one or two others your response to any of these questions:

  • How (if at all) does this differ from what you have known and believed before?
  • Who do you know who lives out this conviction and commitment?
  • How does this conviction inspire your imagination?
  • How does this conviction challenge or empower your faith?
  • How might this conviction impact the way you live?

    • 2. Read the article from Anabaptism Today that explores this conviction:

  • What questions does this article raise for you?
  • What aspects of the core conviction does it not address?
  • Are there elements of the article or the conviction with which you disagree?
  • Are there elements that you strongly affirm?

    • 3. Check whether there is any difference between the current version of this core conviction and the earlier version on which this article was based. If there is:

  • Why do you think a change was made?
  • Which version do you prefer?
  • Are there further changes you would propose?

    • 4. Which is less realistic – a commitment to non-violence in all circumstances or the conviction that violent means can achieve just and peaceful outcomes?

    5. What should Christians who are committed to peace do when innocent people are being victimised or whole nations are being eradicated?

    6. What biblical support is there for the claim that ‘peace is at the heart of the gospel’?

    7. What resources, processes, practices or disciplines has your church embraced for dealing creatively with conflict?

    8. What might you do personally to ‘learn how to make peace’?

    NB: Further resources for this session can be found at www.anabaptistnetwork.com/node/231

    9. What liturgical resources – songs, prayers, poetry, icons, rituals, etc. – do you know that might enable you or your church to express and celebrate this core conviction and renew this commitment?

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (1)

    by Stuart Murray Williams

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven "core convictions" that are an attempt to summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. These have been tested in various contexts, they have been revised in light of helpful suggestions, and feedback indicates that people find them helpful and inspiring. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century.

    In a number of short articles we want to unpack these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship. But, before looking at the first one, it is important to explain what these convictions are not:

    * They are not a comprehensive statement of faith, covering every aspect of belief and practice, but a summary of distinctive Anabaptist emphases
    * They are not superior to the core convictions of other traditions, but represent an Anabaptist contribution to the ongoing journey into authentic Christian discipleship
    * They are not fixed and final, but evolving as we grow in our understanding of God’s call, purposes and ways of working in the world
    * They are not intended to exclude or erect boundaries, but to invite reflection, to stir imagination and to encourage initiative

    On consecutive days recently I received a letter and an email responding to conviction 7. The email, from someone interested in peace issues but unsure about pacifism, asked if it was necessary to be a pacifist to join the Anabaptist Network. The letter, from a committed pacifist, asked if it was legitimate for non-pacifists to call themselves Anabaptists. My responses were ‘no’ and ‘yes’ in that order. Historic and present day Anabaptists take peace very seriously – and pacifism is embraced by many – but there is room for discussion and the core convictions invite this, rather than closing it down.

    Unpacking the core convictions, then, does not mean settling issues or defining every term. It means pointing to their underlying concerns and inviting further reflection on how they might help us follow Jesus and participate in God’s mission today.

    The first conviction reads:

    "Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him."

    Unlike the classical creeds, which begin with a statement about God and are set in a Trinitarian framework, we start with a statement about Jesus. The Anabaptist tradition is unapologetically Trinitarian but its distinctive emphasis has been on the human life of Jesus and on his centrality for understanding God, history and humanity. The concern of the early Anabaptists (like many radical movements before them) was that European Christians were giving inadequate attention to the life, example and teaching of Jesus. The story of Jesus as told in the Gospels and his challenging call to discipleship seemed to have been obscured in the creeds, doctrinal debates, ecclesiastical traditions and liturgical practices of the mainstream churches. Anabaptists urged recovery of a Jesus-centred approach to faith that impacted every aspect of discipleship.

    They challenged the Christendom tradition, which had found it hard to cope with the radical Jesus in a world that Christians now controlled and had shifted the emphasis from following Jesus to worshipping him. They challenged the medieval lay piety that was devoted to Jesus but tended to spiritualise and privatise encounters with him. And they challenged the Reformers, who thundered the centrality of Jesus for salvation but seemed reticent to make Jesus normative for lifestyle, church and mission.

    "Following Jesus" is a strong motif within the Anabaptist tradition. One of the best-known 16th century statements is Hans Denck’s assertion: "No one can know Christ unless he follows after him in life." All claims to spiritual experience and theological knowledge are to be tested against lived discipleship. Is this salvation by works, as the opponents of the Anabaptists charged? The second part of Denck’s saying is less well known but indicates that obedience and encounter are interwoven: "and no one can follow him unless he first know him." Anabaptists actually had a stronger experiential emphasis than their contemporaries on the work of the Holy Spirit, but they were not interested in either doctrinal correctness or spiritual experiences that did not result in changed lives, faithful discipleship, authentic church and courageous mission.

    How does this conviction inform and inspire Christians today?

    * In a postmodern world that is deeply sceptical about truth claims, living out the radical and surprising message of the gospel is crucial
    * In a post-Christendom world that is heartily sick of institutional Christianity, there is still a fascination with the person of Jesus if we tell his story
    * Taking seriously the example and teaching of Jesus calls us to re-examine many accepted Christian practices and explore more radical options
    * Jesus-centredness poses questions about the way we do church – our authority structures, the songs we sing, our priorities and what we don’t do
    * Jesus-centredness challenges the ways we participate in society, the values we espouse, the basis on which we engage with social issues

    We will unpack the second core conviction in the next issue, and we welcome further comments on these convictions and how they are guiding and challenging Christians today.

    Stuart Murray Williams, editor of     Anabaptism Today, lives in Oxford and works as a trainer and consultant under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network.

    Core Convictions - previous version

    This version of the Anabaptist Network's core convictions was superseded by a revised version in January 2006.

    1. Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.

    2. Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centred approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.

    3. Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalised Jesus and has left the churches ill-equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving.

    4. The frequent association of the church with status, wealth and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted.

    5. Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multi-voiced worship that sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender and baptism is for believers.

    6. Spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation and working for justice.

    7. Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding non-violent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society and between nations.

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (2)

    by Stuart Murray Williams

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven "core convictions" that summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century. In a series of short articles we are unpacking these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship.

    The second conviction reads:

    "Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centred approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship."

    The Anabaptist movement began at a time when the Bible was newly available to people in 16th-century Europe. Although literacy was limited, recent translations of the Bible into contemporary language meant that Christians all over the place were reading or hearing the Bible read for themselves. And many of them were asking whether the clergy and preachers were interpreting it properly. There were many practices in both church and society that seemed to have little biblical support – indeed, some seemed to be contradicted by biblical teaching.

    Furthermore, the Reformers seemed to be encouraging them to interpret the Bible for themselves rather than relying on traditional understandings and the pronouncements of popes and church councils. "Scripture alone!" was their rallying call. Anabaptists revelled in this new freedom and searched the Bible together for guidance on how to live as followers of Jesus and how to build communities of disciples. The answers they found on many issues were very different from the answers given by Catholic priests or the Reformers, and very threatening. A different way of reading and interpreting the Bible was emerging that would result in the planting of different kinds of churches and in persecution.

    What was different about the Anabaptists’ approach to the Bible?

    * They were confident that ordinary Christians, who had not received official accreditation or theological training, but who were open to the Holy Spirit, could interpret the Bible responsibly.
    * They believed that the congregation, not the seminary or preacher’s study, was the place where the Bible should be interpreted – understanding the Bible was a community practice.
    * Their focus was on application rather than mere interpretation – discovering what the Bible meant for discipleship rather than just searching out its original meaning.
    * They insisted that the Bible must be interpreted in the light of the life, teaching and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the centre of the Bible, the one to whom both Testaments pointed.

    This approach, which seemed arrogant, irresponsible and chaotic to their opponents (who quickly revised their suggestion that biblical interpretation was something everyone should be involved in!), challenged many long-held assumptions about how the Bible should be interpreted and resulted in profound disagreements about what it actually meant.

    Many traditional views on ethical issues and church life appeared to be based on the Old Testament rather than the teaching of Jesus. On subjects as diverse as warfare, economics, swearing oaths, baptism, church discipline, leadership and the state, the Anabaptists argued that a Jesus-centred approach to the Bible resulted in a radically different understanding of discipleship. When the Reformers responded with a barrage of Old Testament texts, they complained that this was illegitimate – the Old Testament (and the New) had to be interpreted in the light of God’s decisive revelation in Jesus. Otherwise, Jesus would continue to be marginalised, as he had been since the early years of the Christendom era, and the Bible would continue to be misapplied.

    There are some obvious dangers in the Anabaptists’ approach: ignoring scholarship and training may deprive churches of helpful insights, the Old Testament may be marginalised and congregational interpretation may be a pooling of ignorance. But this approach was liberating in the 16th century, where Anabaptists feared that otherwise the monopoly of the Catholic priest would simply be replaced by the monopoly of the Protestant preacher. And it resulted in the emergence of a radical renewal movement, in which the Bible was studied, discussed and applied in fresh ways – many of which are now widely accepted in both Catholic and Protestant circles!

    This approach to the Bible continues to challenge and liberate those who encounter it through the Anabaptist tradition:

    * Starting with Jesus, rather than trying to fit Jesus into positions derived from other parts of the Bible, leads to different and more radical views and practices on many issues of mission, church life and discipleship. A pertinent example is the role of women in church and society.
    * Focusing on application (as various liberation theologies also advocate) takes Bible study out of the realm of academic discussion and into the realm of costly but invigorating discipleship.
    * Empowering the community to learn together challenges the dominance of monologue preaching and invites scholars, teachers and other specialists to offer their insights within a multi-voiced community, where the insights of all are valued.

    We will unpack the third core conviction in the next issue, and we welcome further comments on these convictions and how they are guiding and challenging Christians today.

    Stuart Murray Williams, editor of     Anabaptism Today, lives in Oxford and works as a trainer and consultant under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network.

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (3)

    by Stuart Murray Williams

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven "core convictions" that summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century. In a series of short articles we are unpacking these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship.

    The third conviction is the longest. It reads:

    "Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalised Jesus and has left the churches ill-equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving."

    ‘Christendom’ was both a political arrangement and a way of thinking. It can be traced to the decision of the emperor Constantine in 313 to adopt Christianity as the imperial religion and to bring the churches in from the margins of society to the centre. Almost a century later the emperor Theodosius made Christianity compulsory, and the once-persecuted church became a persecuting church. The church gained enormous wealth, power and status and grew massively in numbers and influence. But it also changed in many ways.

    The Christendom shift required the Bible to be read in a different way: Old Testament practices were adopted in the Christian empire; interpretations that supported rather than challenging the status quo were preferred; the unsettling teachings of Jesus were explained away or postponed to the future kingdom. The church also changed from a multi-voiced community to an institution dominated by professionals; from a mission-oriented to a maintenance-oriented organisation; from small groups of committed disciples to huge congregations of mainly nominal Christians. The commitment to truth telling was replaced by the swearing of oaths; the commitment to peace was replaced by justification for war; and the commitment to sharing resources was replaced by the tithe.

    Gradually the whole of Europe was drawn into the culture known as Christendom – some willingly, others under pressure of coercion or inducements. All aspects of life were infused with new ideas. Christianity inspired the creativity of artists and sculptors, musicians and poets, architects and craftsmen. The biblical story and Christian theology provided the framework for literature and legislation, judicial practices and imaginative writing. Many have judged the ‘Christendom shift’ to have been a God-given opportunity to explore the implications of the gospel throughout society. Undoubtedly it resulted in a rich, vibrant and enduring civilisation.

    But it was a totalitarian culture, where dissent was not tolerated. It was marred by such institutions as the Inquisition and the Crusades. And it became increasingly corrupt and resistant to challenge. Various medieval radical movements (Waldensians, Lollards and others) dared to criticise the system – and paid a high price. By the early 16th century, the protests were increasing: the peasants rose up seeking social justice, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg (calling for reform) and the Anabaptist movement picked up the baton of more radical dissent from the medieval movements. Christendom fractured into mini-Christendoms that went to war against each other. The attempt to reform Christendom did not work. Those who protested that this was an illegitimate system that distorted Christianity seem, with the benefit of hindsight, to have been right.

    Four centuries later, assailed by the Enlightenment and secularism, discredited by the church’s involvement in warfare, splintered further by division, Christendom is coming to an end – at least in Western Europe, though it lives on in various forms elsewhere. Whatever we think of Christendom, this era is coming to an end. We are heading into the unknown territory of ‘post-Christendom’, where the church is no longer at the centre but on the margins and where, if it is to flourish or even survive, it must rediscover its calling to be a missionary community.

    Scattered across church and society, though, are vestiges of Christendom – practices, institutions, privileges, reflexes, attitudes, ways of speaking and thinking – that are not only outdated and inappropriate in a plural society but often unjust and a hindrance to the church’s mission. We will need to divest ourselves of these and learn different ways of thinking and acting in post-Christendom.

    The Anabaptist tradition is a helpful resource for this task. For nearly 500 years, it has represented an alternative way of discipleship, church and mission. Having rejected the Christendom shift, Anabaptists have explored different perspectives on all kinds of issues and have experimented with different practices. Though far from perfect, it does offer fresh insights that are far more suitable for post-Christendom than the mainstream traditions we have inherited from Christendom. Christians from many traditions today are drawing gratefully on these insights.

    But above all the Anabaptist tradition insists on the centrality of Jesus. Perhaps this was the greatest price paid for the Christendom shift: to come in from the margins to the centre, the church had to push Jesus to the margins. And perhaps this is the greatest opportunity on the threshold of post-Christendom, as the church finds itself once more on the margins – to restore Jesus to the centre. It is the insistence on the centrality of Jesus that may be the Anabaptist movement’s greatest gift to us.

    Stuart Murray Williams, editor of     Anabaptism Today, lives in Oxford and works as a trainer and consultant under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network.

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (4)

    by Stuart Murray Williams

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven “core convictions” that summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century. In a series of short articles we are unpacking these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship.

    The fourth conviction reads:

    [i]The frequent association of the church with status, wealth and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted.[/i]

    The previous article in this series reflected on the implications for the church and its witness of the ‘Christendom’ system (where church and state shared power). Whatever the advantages of this system, the church underwent a startling transition during the fourth and fifth centuries. No longer a powerless, deviant, marginal community subject to intermittent persecution, the church through the following centuries accrued status, wealth and power as a central institution within European society.

    The impact was evident in all kinds of ways. Bishops were wealthy and influential civil servants, with ceremonial robes that befitted their new status. Most church leaders came from the aristocracy and promoted the values of their class. Huge basilicas and cathedrals were designed to be awesomely impressive and were adorned at huge cost. The laity were disempowered as the clergy dominated liturgical spectacles and singing was prohibited except to trained choirs. The poor became increasingly alienated from the churches.

    The institutional church could now impose its beliefs, values and morality through legislation rather than modelling and commending alternative possibilities. Dissidents could be punished by imprisonment, confiscation of property, torture and execution. And the church’s influence could be extended through conquest under the sign of the cross, through crusades and enforced baptisms. It was little comfort to the victims of this oppression that the state undertook the less pleasant activities at the behest of the church!

    The demise of Christendom over recent centuries has pushed the church back onto the margins and gradually eroded its status, wealth and capacity to impose its will. This is a cause of celebration rather than regret, however we feel about diminished influence and shrinking congregations. In post-Christendom we have an opportunity to recover our calling to be good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted, to identify with those at the bottom of society rather than the top, to develop ‘trickle-up’ strategies, rather than ‘trickle-down’ approaches.

    But the Christendom legacy lives on – in the church and in society. Despite its reduced size and influence, the church is still perceived by many as a reactionary institution that embodies and promotes establishment values – more concerned about social order than social justice. Many churches and denominations remain wealthy property-owners and are much stronger in affluent areas than poor communities. Although the church may no longer be able to coerce those with whom it disagrees, it still often speaks and acts as if it occupies the moral high ground and ought to be able to dictate to the rest of society. Many continue to promote top-down mission strategies (to engage with the ‘movers and shakers’). The strong impression is that the loss of status, wealth and the power to exercise control is a result of historical circumstances, not renunciation or repentance. We hanker after past power and glory rather than seizing the opportunity to relocate ourselves where we belong – in solidarity with the poor, powerless and persecuted.

    The Anabaptist tradition, rejecting the Christendom system while it was still dominant and subjecting its values and priorities to rigorous scrutiny, has long challenged this prevailing and persistent misunderstanding of the church’s calling. As a movement of the poor and powerless in the sixteenth century, Anabaptism made common cause with the peasants of Central Europe, calling for social justice and economic reform. This economic radicalism provoked great fear in many places, including England, where the thirty-eighth of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England (1571) countered this with the statement: ‘The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.’

    Anabaptists were also deeply concerned about issues of coercion and marginalisation. Their own experience of powerlessness and persecution made them sensitive to other minorities; they not only denounced warfare, violence and coercion as unchristian but championed the cause of religious liberty for all – including Jews and Muslims.

    Their approach to the Bible undergirded these convictions: their approach has been described as a ‘hermeneutic of justice’ rather than a ‘hermeneutic of order’. Rather than interpreting the Bible in ways that supported the wealthy and powerful and did not disturb the status quo, Anabaptists challenged conventional interpretations and advocated ways of following Jesus that prioritised the poor, powerless and persecuted. Their testimony and legacy can inspire and guide us as we struggle to divest ourselves of inappropriate assumptions, values and loyalties that damage our witness.

    For many who are drawn to the Anabaptist vision, the so-called ‘Nazareth Manifesto’ (Luke 4:18-19) challenges us to a deeper identification with the mission priorities and values of Jesus:

    ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

    With Christians from many other traditions – most of us now on the margins of a post-Christendom culture – we hear the call of Jesus to explore new ways of identifying with others on the margins and being his faithful witnesses.

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (5)

    by Stuart Murray Williams

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven “core convictions” that summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century. In a series of short articles we are unpacking these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship.

    The fifth conviction reads:

    [I]Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multi-voiced worship that sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender and baptism is for believers.[/I]

    This is another core conviction that concerns the church. The previous conviction expressed certain priorities and commitments in relation to the role of the church in society, especially in the post-Christendom societies that characterise 21st century western culture. This fifth conviction gathers up several important aspects of the internal life and character of the Christian community.

    Anabaptists have historically been insistent that the witness of the church (as with individual followers of Jesus) must be coherent with its lifestyle and ethos. How the church behaves matters at least as much as what it says.

    Many of the aspirations and commitments spelled out in this conviction are shared quite widely by Christians from many traditions, and we are certainly not suggesting these are unique to Anabaptists. The pioneering and costly witness of Anabaptists to some of these dimensions of church life, however, has not always been accorded the respect it deserves. And some of these ways of being church remain contentious – in particular, the baptism of believers and refusal to restrict roles on the basis of gender.

    Nor can we point to churches where all these elements are flourishing in exemplary ways. But we do know churches that aspire to many or all of these ways of expressing Christian community and that are working hard at ‘nurturing and developing’ their corporate life in these areas and moving from aspiration to reality.

    This conviction contains too many elements to expound in any detail in a short article, but we can highlight some of the features many of us yearn for in our churches:

    - Churches that are kingdom-oriented rather than self-promoting, realistic about the groaning of creation, the violence and injustice in human society and their own flawed witness, but joyfully resilient and quietly hopeful.

    - Churches in which Christian baptism is the baptism of Christians, celebrating the commitment of those being baptised to following Jesus as disciples.

    - Churches where we enjoy relationships that are true friendships rather than the insipid ‘fellowship’ or institutional ‘membership’ models that often replace these.

    - Churches where many voices are heard in worship, prayer, teaching, prophecy, testimony, biblical interpretation and conversations about direction, and where reversion to the default position of few voices (or even one) is resisted.

    - Churches where honesty and mutuality is encouraged and processes are put in place to help us put right wrong relationships, change our attitudes and follow Jesus wholeheartedly.

    - Churches where young and old learn together and from one another, valuing both the enthusiasm of youth and the experience of age, and where women and men value each others’ perspectives without labelling and stereotyping.

    - Churches where leadership is valued as a spiritual gift and practised gently, patiently and courageously in order to draw out the gifts and contributions of the whole community.

    - Churches that recognise post-Christendom as a mission context that precludes a ‘business as usual’ approach and invites a different way of telling and living out the Christian story in a world that does not know this story.

    The demise of Christendom has been marked by great uncertainty about the kinds of church life that are viable in a changed and changing society. Many Christians have left the churches in recent years, most of them still eager to follow Jesus but no longer inspired or sustained by their experience of church. Some of these identify as causes of their disillusionment issues that are pertinent to the elements described above – superficiality and failure to engage realistically with the world beyond the church, the silencing of many voices by a few dominant voices, the absence of real friendships and inability to deal creatively and graciously with conflict.

    Others are exploring different ways of being church: the ‘emerging church’ scene that has attracted increasing attention can be described in various ways: diffuse, tentative, creative, desperate, missional, self-indulgent, courageous, etc. It is certainly too soon to attempt to evaluate the significance of this phenomenon or its constituent parts. But these diverse ecclesial experiments indicate both disillusionment with existing forms of church and a longing for something fresh. This is something those of us drawn to the Anabaptist tradition should be able at least to appreciate, as the sixteenth-century Anabaptist movement was motivated by similar passions. But we may be concerned that some of the experimentation focuses on form and style, rather than ethos and core values. The fifth conviction, though it will have implications for structure and shape, is primarily concerned with deeper issues of community life.

    In a time of uncertainty about church life, when Christians are drawing gratefully on ancient traditions (Catholic, Celtic, Orthodox, monastic, etc.) as well as contemporary technology and culture to discover ways of being church that sustain themselves and engage with the world beyond the church, our conviction is that the Anabaptist tradition also offers resources for renewal – sometimes in areas of church life where other traditions have less to offer.

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (6)

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven “core convictions” that summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century. In a series of short articles we are unpacking these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship.

    The sixth conviction reads:

    Spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation and working for justice.

    In our article on the fourth conviction we noted the reference to Anabaptists in the thirty-eighth of the Anglican Thirty Nine Articles (1571): ‘The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.’

    It was not the Anabaptists’ insistence on baptising believers rather than infants or their supposedly heretical theological beliefs that most worried English ecclesiastical authorities. What was most disturbing was their economic radicalism, challenging notions of private property, modelling communal ownership, implicitly and often explicitly criticising the wealth of the churches and their failure to respond to the needs of the poor. Good Anglicans, this Article goes on to insist, should certainly be generous in sharing their resources, but they should not be misled by this kind of radicalism. They should continue to assert the importance of private ownership, which was such a foundational principle of English society.

    Having ‘all things in common’ was not, in fact, the normal expression of economic discipleship among Anabaptists. The Moravian Hutterites developed ‘common purse’ communities, initially through necessity and increasingly on the basis of theological conviction and biblical interpretation (especially of Acts 2-4). The short-lived and disastrous Anabaptist uprising at Münster, which so alarmed English and other authorities, also imposed common ownership. But Swiss Brethren, Mennonites and most other Anabaptists practised ‘mutual aid’, continuing to own property but gladly making their resources available to brothers and sisters in need.

    This sounds quite similar to what the Thirty-Eighth Article advocated, so why was Anabaptist economic radicalism so troubling in the 16th century? And what are the implications of Anabaptist thinking and practice at the start of the 21st century?

    Wholehearted commitment to ‘mutual aid’ (and even more powerfully to ‘common purse’ community) did, in fact, result in much more radical sharing of resources than the Thirty-Eighth Article normally inspired. Over the centuries, though not always consistently, Anabaptists have been distinguished by their simple living, contentment, community ethos, resistance to consumerism and practical service to others. There have certainly been some who have been seduced by individualism and consumerism (as in all Christian traditions), but overall the Anabaptist tradition offers perspectives and practices that may continue to be helpful in our struggle against these powerful twin temptations.

    Anabaptism (in common with some other Christian traditions) has generally insisted that theology and practice cannot be divorced: orthopraxy is as crucial as orthodoxy. Spirituality and economics are interwoven. Love for God is demonstrated in love for brothers and sisters, expressed in very practical ways (cf. 1 John 3:17). Lifestyle matters. Living simply and being content with enough demonstrates faith in God and an orientation towards the kingdom of God.

    One of the aspects of the Anabaptist tradition that attracts others is the practice of community that offers a counter-cultural way of living in an individualistic culture. This is multi-faceted but certainly includes ‘mutual aid’, from the barn-raising of the Amish to creative alternatives to mortgages for house purchases to the deployment of church planting teams that mutually support their members.

    Another very disturbing feature of the 16th-century Anabaptist movement was its opposition to paying tithes. This state-church tax was experienced by the poor as oppressive and provoked frequent protests (for example in the peasants’ movement of 1524-1526), but it was foundational to the Christendom system and defended by both church and state with determination and increasing desperation. Anabaptists, in common with other radical groups, rejected the state churches’ approach to tithing as unjust and based on bad biblical interpretation.

    The re-emergence of tithing during the 20th century, especially among some evangelicals, who promote this as a form of economic radicalism, would have surprised and appalled 16th-century Anabaptists. Tithing is highly individualistic, does little to challenge global or local injustice or the power of consumerism, continues to disadvantage the poor and does not build community. Those drawn to the Anabaptist tradition today are much more interested in exploring other biblical concepts such as jubilee in the Old Testament (the proper context for the tithe) and koinonia in the New.

    Two areas contemporary Anabaptists have been exploring in recent years that 16th-century Anabaptists were either unaware of or unable to engage with are caring for creation and working for justice. Anabaptists were no more ecologically aware than their 16th-century contemporaries and, as a powerless and persecuted minority, they had little opportunity to work actively for a more just society. But the principles of simplicity, contentment, community and service that have imbued the Anabaptist tradition are increasingly inspiring Anabaptist Christians to explore the connections between spirituality, caring for creation and actively working for justice.

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (7)

    by Stuart Murray Williams

    On the inside back cover of Anabaptism Today are seven “core convictions” that summarise the values, principles, commitments and concerns of many who are part of the Anabaptist Network. They represent an Anabaptist way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus at the start of the 21st century. In a series of short articles we are unpacking these convictions, exploring their implications for faith, mission and discipleship.

    The seventh and final conviction reads:

    Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding non-violent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society and between nations.

    Anabaptism shares with the Quaker tradition the designation of being a ‘historic peace church’ – a movement that regards peace as fundamental to the gospel rather than an incidental item and that regards the use of violence (especially lethal violence) as incompatible with Christian discipleship. Although early Anabaptists were not all of one mind on this issue, opposition to warfare, capital punishment and other forms of violence characterised many branches of the movement and the developing tradition came to espouse non-violence as a core conviction.

    According to Anabaptists, peace is multi-faceted. It includes peace between humanity and God, but embraces also inter-personal relationships, attitudes towards those who are different from us, approaches to crime and punishment, strategies for resolving conflict and global politics. As the wonderfully rich concept of shalom in the Old Testament indicates, peace is not just the absence of conflict but implies well-being, wholeness, justice, community and harmonious relationships with all of creation. Peace is at the heart of the gospel for those who follow Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

    But the use and justification of lethal violence and participation in warfare are critical issues. The so-called ‘war on terror’ is the latest in a long line of conflicts that depend on convictions about the capacity of violence to resolve conflict. Anabaptists have challenged Christians from other traditions to reject the dominant ‘just war’ approach (which derived from classical rather than biblical sources under the influence of the Christendom shift) and the crusading ideology of ‘holy war’ in favour of a return to the predominantly pacifist tradition of the early churches.

    At times, this opposition to war and other forms of violence has appeared ‘passivist’ rather than pacifist, leading to accusations of disengagement from society, lack of concern about injustice and irresponsible idealism. But Anabaptists have also been at the forefront of initiatives to find non-violent alternatives to violent and punitive approaches to conflict that appear more ‘realistic’ in a fallen world but often fail to deliver.

    Examples of non-violent alternatives include:

    • Christian Peacemaker Teams that take risky initiatives in conflict zones in the hope of protecting those who are in danger and stimulating different ways of thinking and relating across divisions. See the Christian Peacemaker Teams UK website for more information.

    • Victim-offender reconciliation programmes and other restorative justice practices that offer alternatives to retributive and anonymous approaches to crime and punishment.

    • Mediation services (such as Bridge Builders at the [url="http://www.menno.org.uk">London Mennonite Centre) that work for healthy congregational life and conflict transformation.

    Members of the Anabaptist Network are involved in these initiatives and in efforts to challenge reliance upon what Walter Wink calls the ‘myth of redemptive violence’. It has been encouraging to discover growing numbers of Christians – and many other people – who no longer believe this myth, who are opposed to the use of violence to resolve conflicts between nations and who are interested in exploring alternatives.

    Our commitment is to continue reflecting, experimenting and learning. After centuries of adopting the ‘just war’ and ‘holy war’ approaches as if these were authentically Christian, finding peaceful alternative strategies will take time and imagination. The Anabaptist tradition is a resource, pointing us back to the life and teaching of Jesus and offering historical examples both of resistance to the use of violence and of the struggle to be consistent.

    One of the iconic figures in the Anabaptist tradition is Dirk Willems, who belonged to an underground church in the Netherlands in the second half of the sixteenth century. Fleeing capture across a frozen canal he heard the ice give way behind him and turned back to rescue from the icy water a bailiff who was pursuing him. This compassionate act cost Dirk his life, as he was promptly arrested and soon afterwards burned at the stake. As Anabaptists have reflected on this story (see Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back?) and asked why Dirk turned back, many have concluded that this reflexive behaviour was possible only because he had been nurtured in a community in which enemy-loving was regarded as normative for disciples of Jesus. Becoming a peace church is not achieved by issuing statements or even ‘core convictions’ but by developing counter-cultural reflexes in our community life, worship and understanding of God’s purposes. See the Becoming a Peace Church Study Guide for a more in depth exploration of this transformation.

    At the conclusion of this series of articles on the core convictions of the Anabaptist Network, it is worth underlining that these are aspirations and commitments, values that we hold but have not yet fully worked through. We find the Anabaptist tradition helpful as it points us back to Jesus and challenges us to creative and faithful forms of discipleship. Together with many brothers and sisters in other traditions, we want to continue to discover how to follow Jesus beyond Christendom in a world we cannot control but within which we can hope to live provocatively and distinctively. Finding and modelling non-violent alternatives in a divided and violent world may be one of the most useful contributions we can make to contemporary society and one of the most attractive expressions of Christian discipleship.

    Stuart Murray Williams, editor of Anabaptism Today, lives in Oxford and works as a trainer and consultant under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network.

    Conferences

    The Network has organised various conferences over the years.

    In May 1993, we met in Manchester to reflect on the demise of Christendom in Europe and the implications for the church and its mission.

    In October 1993, we met in an Anglican theological college in Nottingham to learn from the early church and its pre-Christendom witness.

    March 1994 found us at Bristol Baptist College, asking questions about Anabaptism and local church practice. Then in May 1994, we held our first residential conference at the Hutterian Bruderhof in East Sussex.

    Further conferences took place in Leeds in September 1995 on the theme “Roots for Renewal” and at the Wildfire Community in Worcestershire in April 1996 on “The Joy and Struggle of Creating Community.”

    We returned to Bristol in May 1997 to explore the role of stories in building community and met in the West Midlands in November 1998 to consider the implications of becoming a Peace Church.

    We held a different kind of conference in London in January 1998, to which we invited groups of leaders from about twenty churches who were wanting to explore the relevance of Anabaptism for their own congregations. A second conference of this kind was held in March 1999.

    Our largest conferences to date were three events co-sponsored with the Northumbria Community, held in Oxford in April 2000, and in Bradford and Oxford in June 2001, exploring the Celtic and Anabaptist traditions. These were entitled “There’s Life in the Roots” and “Voices from the Margins”.

    In 2002 we held four conferences. In March almost 100 people met in Amersham (Bucks) to explore the question 'Who were the English Radicals?' In June a fully subscribed residential conference considered what might be involved in 'Re-imagining the Church'. In November we held two events in a single week: a conference jointly sponsored with the Baptist Union explored 'Mission in Post-Christendom' and a conference jointly sponsored with Men, Women and God and the London Mennonite Centre looked at the subject 'Men, Women and God's Word'.

    In 2003 we took a break from organising conferences to concentrate on developing the Network in other ways. However, the Yorkshire study group organised an event in Barnsley in September called 'Exodus', exploring the issues involved in people leaving churches. We hope to run this event again elsewhere in the future.

    In March 2004 we held a conference in Northampton on Anabaptists and Politics, entitled 'A Subversive Manifesto'. In May 2005 we held another residential conference on the subject of Christian lifestyle, entitled 'How then shall we live?' and exploring Anabaptist insights into discipleship.

    In October 2005 we were invited to hold a conference in York. Jonathan Blakeborough reported after this event: 'At the request of York St John College, a college of Leeds University, the Anabaptist Network and Christian Peacemaker Teams held a day conference in York on Saturday 15th October entitled Workers For Peace: Anabaptist Perspectives on Being Church and Making Peace. The conference was chaired by Pauline Kollontai, a senior lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at York St John, who is Jewish and previously an academic at the Peace Studies Department of Bradford University. Following a dramatic reading of the trial of Michael Sattler, Stuart Murray Williams, chair of AN, gave a keynote speech which introduced historic Anabaptism to an audience who largely had very little previous knowledge of the tradition. Tim Nafziger, CPT reservist, then gave a slideshow presentation of his experiences as a CPTer in Colombia earlier this year. Finally Pauline Kollontai chaired a question and answer session in which questions tended to focus on Anabaptist attitudes to peacemaking. Discussion was a times heated, including contributions from both a former WW2 veteran and a conscientious objector. With its interfaith dimension in an academic setting, this was a thought-provoking event.'

    In January 2006 at the invitation of the East Midlands Baptist Association and in partnership with Urban Expression, we held a conference in Melton Mowbray on the subject Creating Church on the Margins. Juliet Kilpin and Stuart Murray Williams were the speakers.

    In July 2006 we held a conference in Birmingham to launch Jonathan Bartley's book in the 'After Christendom' series. The conference title was the same as the book's: Faith and Politics after Christendom. Speaking alongside Jonathan were Andrew Bradstock and Simon Barrow.

    In November 2006 we held a jointly sponsored conference at Cliff College in Derbyshire to explore the Anabaptist and Methodist traditions. The theme was Radical Discipleship and the keynote speaker was Martyn Atkins.

    In May 2007 we held another residential conference at Barnes Close, near Birmingham. A fully-booked event enjoyed time together and an opportunity to reflect with guest speakers Alan and Eleanor Kreider on the theme of their forthcoming book, Worship and Mission after Christendom.

    In May 2008 we held our largest conference yet. Co-sponsored with the Northumbria Community, New Habits for a New Era? explored the theme of 'new monasticism' and drew together an ethusiastic gathering from very diverse backgrounds for a day together in Coventry.

    Papers from this event, and a summary of the day written by an enthusiastic participant, can be downloaded below.

    During 2009 and 2010 our focus was on developing the new Anabaptist networks of organisations and communities, rather than organising conferences. In addition, Roy Searle and Stuart Murray Williams presented 'Prophetic Voices' day events in various locations, exploring the contemporary significance of the Anabaptist, Celtic and new monastic traditions.

    In 2011 a further development of the growing relationship between the Anabaptist Network and the Northumbria Community will be a jointly sponsored residential conference in Whitby.

    Ethos

    We are not interested in Anabaptism as an end in itself, but as a lens through which to rediscover Jesus and his call to discipleship. Nor do we regard Anabaptism as a flawless tradition, or as complete in itself, but as a significant movement within European (and now global) church history, whose voice has been silent for too long. We believe the Anabaptist tradition offers crucial insights for churches now operating from the margins and facing the challenges and opportunities of witness in a post-Christendom culture. We believe it calls Christians back to the forgotten centrality of Jesus, and on to a more radical missionary engagement with contemporary society.

    Participants in conferences and study groups, subscribers to Anabaptism Today and others involved in Network activities are drawn to Anabaptism for various reasons. Some are interested mainly in one aspect of the tradition (discipleship, community, peace, etc.). Others are intrigued by sixteenth-century Anabaptist history and want to know more about this movement. Many are searching for ways to renew their own churches and traditions. Some have “come home” to Anabaptism and now identify themselves primarily with this tradition.

    Consequently, we have developed some core convictions but no “statement of faith” or set organisational procedures. The Anabaptist tradition has generally been wary of creeds and has encouraged ongoing dialogue rather than fixed positions. The Network has developed over the past decade through conversations over meals, discussions among friends old and new, sharing ideas and experiences. It operates not as a “bounded set” (where concern to define insiders and outsiders requires careful definition and maintenance of boundaries), but as a “centred set” (a more dynamic model, where relationships rather than rules define belonging, and where the focus is on living by and communicating core convictions).

    Despite the informal nature of the Network, we recognise that every movement in which people care passionately about things encounters conflict. We choose to name this so that we are not taken by surprise when tensions develop. Convinced that peace is at the heart of the gospel, we are committed to dealing with the conflicts that inevitably will arise by seeking God’s way through them, not fearing conflict but facing it, recognising that conflict well handled can bond a group together.

    History

    Formed in 1992, the Anabaptist Network is a loose-knit, relational network of individuals interested in drawing on the insights and experiences of the Anabaptist tradition. During the 1980s, a study group met in London to explore issues of common interest and to learn from Anabaptist materials. We studied together, became friends and began to think about other people we knew with similar interests.

    By 1991 we felt that the time might be right to develop an Anabaptist Network in the UK, to strengthen friendship links between those who shared common interests and perspectives. Many of these had encountered Anabaptism through the ministry of Alan and Eleanor Kreider, Mennonite missionaries in England. We wrote to about 600 people, inviting them to join this emerging Network and 450 responded positively. The Anabaptist Network was formed, a journal, Anabaptism Today, was launched, and in 1993 we set up a charitable trust to administer the Network.

    Our mandate is to offer resources and perspectives from the Anabaptist tradition for reflection on Christian discipleship in a post-Christendom culture, where churches are now on the margins rather than at the centre of society. We want to encourage friendship and sharing of ideas between those who are wrestling with the challenges of this context and who are interested in mining this marginalised tradition for responses. Above all, we want to stimulate and encourage faithful and creative forms of mission, church life and discipleship.

    Newsletters

    These files are saved in .pdf format so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open them. You can get Acrobat Reader free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

    Organisation

    The Network depends almost entirely on volunteers. It is guided by an informal steering group, comprising individuals from different traditions (presently Anglican, URC, Baptist, House Church and Mennonite) who meet three times a year to co-ordinate Network activities. Four of these also function as trustees of the Anabaptist Network Trust (registered charity number 1021760). Anabaptism Today, during the years when it was published, had an editor, an editorial board and a book reviews editor. The theological circle and regional groups have convenors, and the regional groups also have a co-ordinator.

    Regional Groups

    The Network sponsors regional groups (previously known as study groups) in various parts of the country, which offer opportunities every couple of months for members of the Network to meet together informally and locally to explore Anabaptist themes and their contemporary significance. Some groups have met for two or three years before disbanding, feeling that they have achieved their aims; others have continued to meet over several years. Each has developed its own identity and flavour.

    You can find regional groups in your area in the Anabaptist Network regional groups listing.

    Regional Groups' Locations

    For more information about joining a regional group, or to start your own, e-mail groups@anabaptistnetwork.com

    Each blue marker on the map below represents a regional group. Click on a marker to see the address of the group leader and a link to a page with contact info and a smaller map.

    If you can't find a group near you, check out the virtual regional group or start your own! At bottom of the page there is a listing of all the active Anabaptist Network regional groups.

    Bristol

    Contact for this group is Stuart Murray Williams, 24 Effingham Road, Bristol BS6 5BJ (0117 330 7826) stuart@murraywilliams.co.uk

    Cambridge

    'East Anglian Anabaptists' meets in Cambridge. For further details, contact David & Irene Allen (d.allen45@btinternet.com or 01206 823737).

    Cheshire

    Contact for this group is Brian Haymes: 1 Colville Grove, Timperley, Altrincham, Cheshire WA15 6NA (0161 374 0813) brian.haymes@ntlworld.com

    Devon

    Contacts for this group are Martin Parkes (martinparkes@mailshack.com) or Ros Parkes (parkes.ros@gmail.com). The group meets at 23 Higher Roborough, Ashburton TQ13 7BH.


    View Larger Map

    Edinburgh

    Contact for this study group is Jim Purves, Bristo Baptist Church, Buckingham Terrace, Edinburgh EH4 3DJ (0131 332 3682). Bristo Baptist Church is marked by a green marker on the map below. You can zoom in or out on the map using the sliding zoom scale on the left and move around the map using the arrows or by clicking and holding with your mouse. If you would like driving directions, click on the Google icon in the lower left hand corner of the image to see this map area on Google maps.

    Glasgow

    At the moment the group meets in various city centre Glasgow pubs with emails sending out details ahead of time.

    Contact Stuart Blythe at stuart.blythe@uws.ac.uk

    Leyland

    Contact for this study group is Joan & Barry Williamson, 34 Runshaw Lane, Euxton, Chorley PR7 6AU (01257 460168). Email: banjoq@phonecoop.coop

    74 Albert Road is marked by a green marker on the map below. You can zoom in or out on the map using the sliding zoom scale on the left and move around the map using the arrows or by clicking and holding with your mouse. If you would like driving directions, click on the Google icon in the lower left hand corner of the image to see this map area on Google maps.

    Lockerbie

    Contact for this study group is David & Mary Kirkman, 1 Kettleholm Cottage, Kettleholm, Lockerbie DG11 1BU (01576 510440) kirkmans3@hotmail.com1 Kettleholm Cottage is marked by a green marker on the map below. You can zoom in or out on the map using the sliding zoom scale on the left and move around the map using the arrows or by clicking and holding with your mouse. If you would like driving directions, click on the Google icon in the lower left hand corner of the image to see this map area on Google maps.

    East London

    Contact for this study group is Karen Stallard, 20 Garnet Street, London E1W 3QT (020 7265 1727) karenstallard@boltblue.com

    20 Garnet Street is marked by a green marker on the map below. You can zoom in or out on the map using the sliding zoom scale on the left and move around the map using the arrows or by clicking and holding with your mouse. If you would like driving directions, click on the Google icon in the lower left hand corner of the image to see this map area on Google maps.

    Oxford

    The contact for this group is Diane Melchert; diane.melchert@ntlworld.com. The group meets at Edith Kempton House, Littlemore, Oxford.

    View Map

    Portadown

    Contact for this study group is Tim Foley, 2 Market Lane, Portadown, Craigavon, Co. Armagh BT63 3JY (07966 391729) timf@clara.co.uk2 Market Lane is marked by a green marker on the map below. Note that Tim lives in a new estate whose streets are not shown on the map. You can zoom in or out on the map using the sliding zoom scale on the left and move around the map using the arrows or by clicking and holding with your mouse. If you would like driving directions, click on the Google icon in the lower left hand corner of the image to see this map area on Google maps.

    Warwick

    Contact for this group Meg Harper, 6 Turner Close, Warwick, CV34 6PZ (01926 400450) meg4ever@greenbee.net

    Virtual Study Group

    The virtual Anabaptist Network study group uses an email loop to carry on discussions and coversation. It is especially for those who are interested in meeting together but don't have a study group near them geographically. The group includes people from the UK, Canada and the US. To join, email David Pountain, the group coordinator at david@pountain.demon.co.uk

    Theology Forum

    The Anabaptist Network's theology forum takes place twice a year - an opportunity to explore topics of mutual interest, to investigate aspects of Anabaptist history and theology and to read and discuss papers. We meet for 24 hours, usually at Offa House, near Leamington Spa.

    Currently there are about 40 people to whom we send information about these events and invitations to participate and generally somewhere between 12 and 25 people attend each forum. No theological qualifications are required, but the conversations require at least some familiarity with theological language and concepts.

    If you are interested in receiving information and an invitation to a future forum, please contact the forum convenor.

    At the June 2005 forum we explored three unrelated subjects. Sue Sainsbury presented a session on Menno Simons and his understanding of suffering (based on her PhD thesis). Ruth Gouldbourne led an interactive session on the implications of being personally committed to or inspired by Anabaptist values but belonging to a church that had little interest in these. And Veronica Zundel stimulated our thinking as she suggested nine examples of unbiblical ways of thinking within Evangelicalism.

    Graham Old from Northampton has written a brief report of this (his first) forum:

    On Thursday June 9th, the Anabaptist theology forum met for 24 hours of dialogue, learning, worship and fellowship. For some present, myself included, the forum represented something of a breath of fresh air – an Anabaptist oasis! Here are some highlights:

    Sue Sainsbury, soon-to-be lecturer in Christian Doctrine at Mattersey Hall, led us in a session on Menno Simons and his approach to suffering. This was a stimulating and fascinating time! Sue began by encouraging us to be aware of how historians have often been guilty of re-writing Anabaptist history – and Anabaptist themselves are far from innocent on this count (i.e. it’s not only those who still describe Anabaptism in the light of Munster!).

    We then examined Menno’s own account of his ‘Enlightenment, Conversion and Calling,’ which struck me as peculiarly Pauline – whether Menno intentionally wrote it that way or not. At times, Menno almost appears to veer into self-righteousness as he explains how he has suffered for the gospel – sleeping in ditches and jumping at the sounds of dogs barking – whilst the ‘preachers lie on comfortable beds and cushions.’ Again, some might say this is reminiscent of Paul the apostle. Yet, the following quote, taken from The Cross of the Saints, gets to the heart of Menno’s teaching on Christian suffering:

    When we consider, worthy brethren, our very weak and sinful nature, how that we are prone to evil from our youth, how that in our flesh no good thing dwelleth, and how we drink unrighteousness and sin like water… and when we consider how that we have a tendency at all times (although we do seek and fear God) to mind earthly and perishable things, then we see that the gracious God and Father, who through his eternal love always cares for His children, has left behind in His house an excellent remedy against all this, namely, the pressing cross of Christ.

    Essentially, Menno is expounding the thought found in Scripture that it is precisely because we are beloved children of God that he disciplines us. Discussion then followed on whether such an emphasis might be unhelpful, particularly for a people committed to peace. Do we really want to produce passivity in victims of violence by encouraging them to embrace it joyfully? It’s an important question and one that I feel we need to discuss much further, but I note that it is as much a question for the biblical authors as it is for Menno Simons.

    Sue then left us with two questions to consider further: What if ‘perfect peace and prosperity’ really is the ultimate killer in God’s economy? What if suffering (for Christ) really is the blessing of God to keep us from true death?

    On Thursday evening, Ruth Gouldbourne (Tutor in Church History at Bristol Baptist College and a Baptist minister) and Chris Burch convened the first meeting of Anabaptists Anonymous! For many, an interest in all things Anabaptist is not the kind of thing that can be talked about too often or too openly – hence the forum being something of an oasis. Christ Burch, former Canon Precentor of Coventry Cathedral and now working in an Urban Priority Area, knows how that feels. Chris feels the tension of working within the establishment, whilst sharing the values of those at the margins. Ruth invited us to address Chris about these tensions and a lively discussion followed (surprisingly and probably thankfully, infant baptism only came up in passing!)

    This was an important discussion as we looked at the dissolution of Christendom from a number of angles and questioned how we might best respond. Do we recognise the errors of the past, but still gladly embrace the remaining opportunities that it presents? Or do we employ a hermeneutic of justice and refuse to accept the position of privilege? My own response is very different to Chris’, but I guess it helps to have people on the inside!

    Finally, Veronica Zundel (from Wood Green Mennonite Church) led us in an exploration of ‘Unbiblical Evangelicalism’ (or, as one participant described it, '9 Evangelical heresies'!). Essentially, we were looking at the question, How does (popular contemporary) Evangelicalism differ from Scripture – and how can we as Anabaptists learn from that? One point that repeatedly occurred was the individualistic and ‘other-worldly’ nature of much popular evangelicalism (though it was suggested by a number present that this is changing). In contrast, Scripture – and Anabaptism – emphasises the importance of building Kingdom communities.

    For a number of people present Veronica managed to capture the journey that we had been taking in recent years. Speaking as someone who might be considered part of the emerging church, it was fascinating to hear Veronica sharing ideas that are sometimes presented as a recent re-discovery or even a post-modern innovation! One statement particularly struck me – and fed into later discussions on the relationship between Eastern Orthodoxy and Anabaptism: As salvation is a process (rather than a single crisis event) then we ‘cannot separate the means of sanctification from the means of salvation.’ Again, this is discussion that needs to continue!

    Other events included the sharing of news, prayer, book reviews, planning of future forums, discussion of potential books in the After Christendom series and web-site recommendations. Yet, at the end of the day, nothing could beat the refreshing sense of fellowship that came from knowing that, regardless of how we might differ theologically on many other issues, this one thing we shared: a living passion for the tradition of Jesus-centred discipleship. That, for me, is what Anabaptism is all about.

    At the December 2005 forum the three main sessions were led by Philip Meadows, Christopher Rowland and Stuart Murray Williams. The overall theme was 'Christian Perfectionism'. Some of the papers from this forum are available in the Articles section of this website.

    There was no forum in June 2006 to make room for participants to attend the Mennonite theological forum organised by Vic Thiessen in London.

    The December 2006 forum explored environmental and medical ethical issues with contributions from Michael Northcott (paper, not in person), Jo Rathbone, Chris Walton and Alun Morinan.

    The December 2007 forum discussed papers on 'Knowing and Following' by Brian Haymes, 'What has God to do with Religious Freedom?' by Ruth Gouldbourne and 'Creating Community: Marianne Farningham and her girls’ class, 1857-1901' by Linda Wilson.

    At the October 2008 forum, Lloyd Pietersen presented material from his forthcoming book, Reading the Bible after Christendom.

    At the May 2009 forum, there were presentations from Fran Porter on 'Faith and Feminism', Simon Barrow on 'Putting the Difficult Peace of Christ into Practice' and Simon Woodman on 'Can the Book of Revelation be a Gospel for the Environment?'

    At the May 2010 forum, we discussed papers on '16th Century Anabaptism in Central and Eastern Europe – a forgotten story’, ‘The Nakedness of The Naked Anabaptist’, and ‘Anabaptists, Atonement and R S Thomas’.

    At the December 2010 forum,Mike Pears gave a paper on ‘A Theology of Urban Landscapes’, Jonathan Bartley explored 'Christian Persecution in Europe? Why history is not repeating itself’, and Simon Barrow led a session on 'Worship and Mission after Christendom: a discussion on Alan and Eleanor Kreider's new book’.

    At the May 2010 forum, there were papers from Simon Perry on ‘Different Truths: Fiction and the Bible’, Paul Lusk on ‘State and Society in Christian thought: Anabaptist Perspectives’ and Andrew Francis on ‘Reflecting on Anabaptism as Radical Christianity’.

    Anabaptism Today Journal

    Published three times a year between November 1992 and November 2004, the Network’s journal was dedicated to exploring radical church history and its implications for discipleship today. Its aim has been to provide resources for those interested in Anabaptism, by introducing readers to sixteenth-century Anabaptists, printing articles and book reviews that reflect on the significance of Anabaptist convictions for church and society in the twenty-first century, and encouraging ongoing dialogue.

    Issue 14 was a special issue, which has been reprinted and will remain available. Entitled Introducing the Anabaptists, this provides a useful summary of their history, distinctive convictions and practices, and contemporary significance.

    During 2004 the decision was taken to cease publication of the journal after 12 years and 37 issues (the final issue being the November 2004 issue). The Anabaptist Network is run by volunteers and, as the Network moves into a new phase with increasing interaction with Christians from other traditions and new publishing opportunities, we decided that our limited resources should now be devoted to other priorities.

    Copies of most previous issues are available and can be purchased from the Anabaptist Network using the contact form. If you were not a subscriber, you can still receive a complimentary copy of a back issue of the journal by requesting this on the contact form.

    On the following pages you will find an author index and a subject index for past issues of the journal. You can search these to find specific articles of interest to you. Selected articles from past issues are available in the Articles Archive:

    Anabaptism Today Index by Author

    All AT articles prior to Issue 36 are listed on this page under their respective author. If the article is available on the web site, we've hyperlinked the title to the posted article.

    Allaway, Bob

    Children...part of the church today, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004

    Barrow, Simon

    Beyond the Ties that Bind: Anglicans, Anabaptists and Disestablishment, Issue 30:9-14 Summer 2002

    Bartley, Jonathan

    Introducing ... Ekklesia, Issue 30:25-27 Summer 2002

    Beshe, Sisay

    Taking on the Powers, Issue 7:5-8 October 1994

    Birch, Chris

    Anabaptist Insights in the Heart of the Establishment, Issue 26:14-20 Spring 2001

    Blackman, Sean

    'Interactive Preaching' Revisited, Stephen Willis and Sean Blackman, Issue 23:3-7 Spring 2000

    Blaney, Darren

    Anabaptists and the Great Commission, Issue 30:2-8 Summer 2002

    Brown, Kevin

    Doing It Thy Way: Where to Next?, Issue 16:23-28 October 1997

    Campanale, David Review.

    Johann Christoph Arnold, The Lost Art of Forgiving, Issue 19:30 Autumn 1998

    Cartwright, Colin

    Studying War, Training for Peace, Issue 28:5-10 Autumn 2001

    Robert Charles

    Mennonite Mission Work in Europe: Issue 37:3-9 October 2004

    Chatfield, Adrian

    A Seedbed for Renewing the Church, Issue 8:12-15 February 1995

    Cockburn, David

    From Arms Maker to Peacemaker, Issue 28:11-13 Autumn 2001

    Introducing Christian Peacemaker Teams: Issue 36:17-24 June 2004

    Coupland, Kay

    'There's Life in the Roots', Issue 24:12-14 Summer 2000

    Cruz, Victor Pedroza

    Mexican Anabaptism: The Challenge to Make More Noise, Issue 26:21-26 Spring 2001

    Dale, Trisha

    An Upsurge of Interest, Issue 3:3-6 June 1993

    Becoming a Peace Church? Worship, Work, War and Witness, Issue 20:27-29 Spring 1999

    Network-within-the-Network Grows from Congregational Conference, Issue 17:20-22 Spring 1998

    De Bhaldraithe, Eoin

    Adult Baptism in the Early Church, Issue 15:10-15 June 1997

    Fahrer, Walfred

    Inviting Others to Know and Follow Jesus, Issue 9:8-12 June 1995

    Fitz-Gibbon, Andrew

    A Plea for Historical Integrity, Issue 6:16-18 June 1994

    Foley, Tim

    The Anabaptism of Balthasar Hubmaier, Issue 22:14-22 Autumn 1999

    Seeking the Source in the Toronto Blessing, Issue 8:4-6 February 1995

    A Stubborn Misrepresentation, Issue 12:15-20 June 1996

    Forster, Roger,

    Coming Home to a Heritage, Issue 7:15-19 October 1994

    Fox, Paul,

    The Church as Sacrament, Issue 7:20-21 October 1994

    Francis, Andrew

    Alpha: Is it an Anabaptist Way of Mission?, Issue 18:3-9 Summer 1998

    Getting Caught up in Anabaptism, Issue 21:19-24 Summer 1999

    Froese, Tim

    Korean Anabaptism: A 'Heretical' Renewal Movement, Issue 29:9-14 Spring 2002

    Gardiner, Judith A.

    Anabaptists in the Political Realm, Issue 7:2-4 October 1994

    Gibbons, Lin and Les

    Who Were the English Radicals?, Issue 30:22-24 Summer 2002

    Halliday, Sue

    Walking Together for the Weekend, Issue 6:19-21 June 1994

    Hess, Dan

    Peace to the Peacemakers, Issue 23:8-9 Spring 2000

    Horton, Chris

    Joining Hands, Issue 19:25-27 Autumn 1998

    Hynd, Doug

    Anabaptism 'Down Under': The Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand, Issue 25:21-24 Autumn 2000

    Jeffery, Margaret,

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Issue 5:10-12 February 1994

    Jones, Keith

    What Difference Does It Make? Guidelines for Worship from the Early Anabaptists, Issue 27:10-18 Summer 2001

    Kilpin, Juliet

    Urban Expression: Anabaptist Church Planting?, Issue 29:15-18 Spring 2002

    Kraybill, Nelson

    Conflict and Church Decision Making, Issue 11:16-19 February 1996

    A Day with the Hutterian Brethren, Issue 4:17-22 October 1993

    Dealing Creatively with Conflict in the Church, Issue 10:18-22 October 1995

    Zurich: Seedbed of Radical Change, Issue 1:12-16 November 1992

    Kreider, Alan

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Issue 5:3-6 February 1994

    Enabling the Anabaptist Voice to Sing, Alan and Eleanor Kreider. Issue 24:4-11 Summer 2000

    Initiating Attractive Christians: Insights from the Early Church: Issue 36:2-7 June 2004

    Is a Peace Church Possible?, Issue 19:4-16 Autumn 1998

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Domestic' Life, Issue 20:3-13 Spring 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Work, War, Witness, Issue 22:3-14 Autumn 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Worship, Issue 21:3-12 Summer 1999

    Letter from America, Issue 29:3-8 Spring 2002

    The London Mennonite Centre's First Fifty Years, Issue 32:2-10 February 2003

    Recovering Anabaptist Spirituality, Issue 10:12-17 October 1995

    The Search for Roots, Issue 1:5-11 November 1992

    Kreider, Eleanor

    The Church as a Community in Worship, Issue 13:3-7 October 1996

    The Disciple Is not above the Master: Anabaptist Spirituality, Issue 23:10-19 Spring 2000

    Enabling the Anabaptist Voice to Sing, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, Issue 24:4-11 Summer 2000

    The Lords Supper, Issue 2:8-12 February 1993

    Praying for Peace, Issue 17:3-7 Spring 1998

    Snapshots of Kingdom People, Issue 4:2-3 October 1993

    A Vision of Multi-Voiced Worship, Issue 5:13-17 February 1994

    Worship: True to Jesus, Issue 34:3-12 October 2003

    Lee, Robert

    Anabaptism in Japan, Issue 28:18-21 Autumn 2001

    Liechty, Joseph

    An Astonishing Capacity to Forgive, Issue 13:13-16 October 1996

    Exclusion and Embrace: From Croatia to Northern Ireland, Issue 18:10-14 Summer 1998

    Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back?, Issue 6:7-12 June 1994

    Maltby, Judith

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Issue 5:6-8 February 1994

    Marshall, Chris

    Following Christ in Life, Issue 23:20-28 Spring 2000

    Through the Eye of a Needle, Issue 9:3-7 June 1995

    McKAY, Alastair

    Conflict in the Church: Threat or Opportunity?, Issue 27:19-23 Summer 2001

    Miller, Bill,

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist Perspective, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    Pastoral Ministry and the Schleitheim Confession: Issue 37:10-16 October 2004

    Morinan, Alun

    A Question of Conscience, Issue 10:9-11 October 1995

    Moules, Noel

    Anabaptism Tomorrow, Issue 6:2-6 June 1994

    For such a Time as This, Issue 10:3-8 October 1995

    The Gospel of Peace, Issue 2:13-17 February 1993

    Learning as Empowerment: Liberating Leadership in Learners: Issue 37:17-24 October 2004

    Murray Williams, Stuart

    Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement, Issue 8:7-11 February 1995

    Church Planting Anabaptist Style, Issue 12:7-14 June 1996

    The Core Convictions—Revisited, Issue 28:28-32 Autumn 2001

    A Decade of Evangelism, Issue 2:3-7 February 1993

    Evangelism in the Radical Tradition, Issue 4:4-9 October 1993

    Introducing the Anabaptists, Issue 14:4-18 February 1997

    Living on the Margins, Issue 25:4-10 Autumn 2000

    Michael Sattler: An Early Swiss Anabaptist Martyr, Issue 16:4-10 October 1997

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (1) , Issue 31: 28-31 October 2002

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (2) , Issue 32: 24-26 February 2003

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (3) , Issue 33:17-19 June 2003

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (4) , Issue 34: 19-21 October 2003

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (5) , Issue 35: 13-16 February 2004

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (6), Issue 36:25-27 June 2004

    Unpacking the Core Convictions (7), Issue 37:25-28 October 2004

    Newcomb, Will

    Turned Around by Reading, Issue 22:22-29 Autumn 1999

    Nussbaum, David

    Clearing away the Vestiges (part 1), Issue 2:18-21 February 1993

    Toronto: Have We Been there before?, Issue 8:2-3 February 1995

    Vestiges in Society (part 2), Issue 3:13-16 June 1993

    Oxford Road Church, Mexborough

    Community, Conflict and International Connections, Issue 18:20-27 Summer 1998

    Pearse, Meic

    Fear of "Anabaptists" in Sixteenth-Century England, Issue 3:17-22 June 1993

    Interview: Ministry or Manipulation?, Issue 15:16-18 June 1997

    Phelps, Alison

    Genoa, Was It Worth It?, Issue 28:14-17 Autumn 2001

    Pietersen, Lloyd

    The Pastoral Epistles Speak to Anabaptists Today, Issue 15:5-9 June 1997

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 1), Issue 17:8-16 Spring 1998

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 2), Issue 18:15-19 Summer 1998

    Porter, David

    Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, Issue 30:15-21 Summer 2002

    Potter, Andy

    The Subversive Church, Issue 21:25-27 Summer 1999

    Swiss Anabaptism and the Sword, Issue 19:17-24 Autumn 1998

    Randall, Ian

    Early English Baptists and Religious Liberty, Issue 4:10-15 October 1993

    Evangelicals and the First World War, Issue 11:9-15 February 1996

    "Ideas have Wings": Ernest Payne and Anabaptism Issue 16:11-16 October 1997

    'Unity Truly of the Christian Faith', Issue 26:5-12 Spring 2001

    The Waldensians and the Healing of the Wounds of History, Issue 21:12-19 Summer 1999

    Rothwell, Paul

    Evangelical Anabaptism: One Hope for Relevant Mission in a Postmodern Context, Issue 27:4-9 Summer 2001

    Saxby, Trevor

    The Jesus Fellowship on Anabaptism, Issue 5:18-22 February 1994

    Seaton, Chris

    Celts and Anabaptists, Issue 23:28-30 Spring 2000

    Shenk, Gerald

    Islands of Hope, Issue 3:7-12 June 1993

    Smith, Greg,

    Are We all Anabaptists now?, Issue 13:8-12 October 1996

    Southall, David

    Pilgram Marpeck: An Ecumenical Anabaptist Issue 24:20-27 Summer 2000

    Sprange, Harry

    Children in an Anabaptist Congregation, Issue 6:13-15 June 1994

    Thiessen, Vic

    The Passion of the Christ and Narrative Christus Victor: Issue 36:8-19 June 2004

    Thiessen Nation, Mark

    Helping Us See Jesus: John Howard Yoder 1927-1997, Issue 17:17-20 Spring 1998

    Much More Than Aphorisms, Issue 25:11-15 Autumn 2000

    Seeking Discernment in the Land of John Smyth, Issue 15:19-22 June 1997

    Thiessen Nation, Mary

    What Have You Come Here to Learn? Issue 16:17-22 October 1997

    Thompson, Jeremy

    Interactive Preaching, Issue 20:14-21 Spring 1999

    Jesus and the Two Swords: Did Jesus Endorse Violence?, Issue 33:10-16 June 2003

    Thorington-Hassell, Jane and Geoff

    Anabaptism with a Harder Edge?, Issue 17:23-27 Spring 1998

    Watkins, Graham

    You Turn Again, Dirk Willems, Issue15:3-4 June 1997

    Wilkinson-Hayes, Anne

    I Have a Dream for my Church, Issue 12:4-6 June 1996

    Willis, Stephen

    'Interactive Preaching' Revisited, Stephen Willis and Sean Blackman. Issue 23:3-7 Spring 2000

    Wood, Philip

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Issue 5:8-10 February 1994

    Wright, Judy

    Menno and Church Discipline, Issue 11:3-8 February 1996

    Wright, Nigel

    Catching the Bell Rope, Issue 1:17-20 November 1992

    "God’s Servant" the State (part 1), Issue 7:9-14 October 1994

    The Powers and Gods Providential Rule, Issue 8:16-20 February 1995

    Re-inventing Christendom, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Respectful and Subversive, Issue 9:17-20 June 1995

    Zehr, Howard

    Crime and Restorative Justice, Issue 9:13-16 June 1995

    Zundel, Veronica

    From Roots to Shoots?, Issue 24:15-19 Summer 2000

    Modest Proposal (1), Issue 32: 27-29 February 2003

    Modest Proposal (2), Issue 33: 23-26 June 2003

    Modest Proposal (3), Issue 34: 22-25 October 2003

    Modest Proposals (4): Issue 36:28-30 June 2004

    Thanks to Trisha Dale and Jared Diener for indexing and Abby Nafziger for linking

    Anabaptism Today Index by Subject

    All AT articles prior to Issue 36 are listed on this page under their respective subject(s). If the article is available on the web site, we've hyperlinked the title to the posted article.

    Alpha Course

    Alpha: Is it an Anabaptist Way of Mission?, Andrew Francis, Issue 18:3-9 Summer 1998

    Anabaptism - Contemporary Expressions

    A Seedbed for Renewing the Church, Adrian Chatfield, Issue 8:12-15 February 1995

    Alpha: Is it an Anabaptist Way of Mission?, Andrew Francis, Issue 18:3-9 Summer 1998

    Anabaptism Tomorrow, Noel Moules, Issue 6:2-6 June 1994

    Anabaptism with a Harder Edge?, Jane and Geoff Thorington-Hassell Issue 17:23-27 Spring 1998

    Anabaptist Insights in the Heart of the Establishment, Chris Burch, Issue 26:14-20 Spring 2001

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Philip Wood, Issue 5:8-10 February 1994

    Children in an Anabaptist Congregation, Harry Sprange, Issue 6:13-15 June 1994

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004

    Church Planting Anabaptist Style, Stuart Murray, Issue 12:7-14 June 1996

    The Church as Sacrament, Paul Fox, Issue 7:20-21 October 1994

    Coming Home to a Heritage, Roger Forster, Issue 7:15-19 October 1994

    The Core Convictions—Revisited, Stuart Murray Williams, Issue 28:28-32 Autumn 2001

    Doing It Thy Way: Where to Next?, Kevin Brown, Issue 16:23-28 October 1997

    Following Christ in Life, Chris Marshall, Issue 23:20-28 Spring 2000

    For such a Time as This, Noel Moules, Issue 10:3-8 October 1995

    "Ideas have Wings": Ernest Payne and Anabaptism, Ian Randall, Issue 16:11-16 October 1997

    Introducing the Anabaptists, Stuart Murray, Issue 14:4-18 February 1997

    The Jesus Fellowship on Anabaptism, Trevor Saxby, Issue 5:18-22 February 1994

    Joining Hands, Chris Horton, Issue 19:25-27 Autumn 1998

    The London Mennonite Centre's First Fifty Years, Alan Kreider, Issue 32:2-10 February 2003

    Network-within-the-Network Grows from Congregational Conference, Trisha Dale, Issue 17:20-22 Spring 1998

    The Pastoral Epistles Speak to Anabaptists Today, Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 15:5-9 June 1997

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Seeking Discernment in the Land of John Smyth, Mark Thiessen Nation, Issue 15:19-22 June 1997

    Snapshots of Kingdom People, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 4:2-3 October 1993

    The Subversive Church, Andy Potter, Issue 21:25-27 Summer 1999

    What Have You Come Here to Learn?, Mary Thiessen Nation, Issue 16:17-22 October 1997

    Anabaptism - definitions

    The Search for Roots, Alan Kreider, Issue 1:5-11 November 1992

    Anabaptism - distinctives

    Introducing the Anabaptists, Stuart Murray Issue 14:4-18 February 1997

    Anabaptists and Evangelism, Darren Blaney, Issue 31:16-24 October 2002

    Anabaptism-History

    A Plea for Historical Integrity, Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Issue 6:16-18 June 1994

    Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement, Stuart Murray, Issue 8:7-11 February 1995

    Anabaptists and Evangelism, Darren Blaney, Issue 31:16-24 October 2002

    Anabaptists and the Great Commission, Darren Blaney, Issue 30:2-8 Summer 2002

    The Anabaptism of Balthasar Hubmaier, Tim Foley, Issue 22:14-22 Autumn 1999

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Alan Kreider, Issue 5:3-6 February 1994

    Early English Baptists and Religious Liberty, Ian Randall, Issue 4:10-15 October 1993

    The Disciple Is not above the Master: Anabaptist Spirituality, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 23:10-19 Spring 2000

    Fear of "Anabaptists" in Sixteenth-Century England, Meic Pearse, Issue 3:17-22 June 1993

    Interactive Preaching Revisited, Stephen Willis and Sean Blackman, Issue 23:3-7 Spring 2000

    Introducing the Anabaptists, Stuart Murray, Issue 14:4-18 February 1997

    The London Mennonite Centre's First Fifty Years, Alan Kreider, Issue 32:2-10 February 2003

    Menno and Church Discipline, Judy Wright, Issue 11:3-8 February 1996

    Michael Sattler: An Early Swiss Anabaptist Martyr, Stuart Murray, Issue 16:4-10 October 1997

    Pilgram Marpeck: An Ecumenical Anabaptist?, David Southall, Issue 24:20-27 Summer 2000

    Swiss Anabaptism and the Sword, Andy Potter, Issue 19:17-24 Autumn 1998

    Unity Truly of the Christian Faith, Ian Randall, Issue 26:5-12 Spring 2001

    What Difference Does It Make? Guidelines for Worship from the Early Anabaptists, Keith Jones, Issue 27:10-18 Summer 2001

    Worship: True to Jesus, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 34:3-12 October 2003

    Zurich: Seedbed of Radical Change, Nelson Kraybill, Issue 1:12-16 November 1992

    Anabaptism-Personal Experiences

    Enabling the Anabaptist Voice to Sing, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, Issue 24:4-11 Summer 2000

    Getting Caught up in Anabaptism, Andrew Francis, Issue 21:19-24 Summer 1999

    Turned Around by Reading, Will Newcomb, Issue 22:22-29 Autumn 1999

    Anabaptism-Spirituality

    The Disciple Is not above the Master: Anabaptist Spirituality, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 23:10-19 Spring 2000

    Pilgram Marpeck: An Ecumenical Anabaptist?, David Southall, Issue 24:20-27 Summer 2000

    Anabaptism-Swiss Brethren

    The Anabaptism of Balthasar Hubmaier, Tim Foley, Issue 22:14-22 Autumn 1999

    Pilgram Marpeck: An Ecumenical Anabaptist?, David Southall, Issue 24:20-27 Summer 2000

    Swiss Anabaptism and the Sword, Andy Potter, Issue 19:17-24 Autumn 1998

    Anabaptism-Theology

    The Anabaptism of Balthasar Hubmaier, Tim Foley, Issue 22:14-22 Autumn 1999

    Anabaptists and the Great Commission, Darren Blaney, Issue 30:2-8 Summer 2002

    The Core Convictions—Revisited, Stuart Murray Williams, Issue 28:28-32 Autumn 2001

    Evangelical Anabaptism: One Hope for Relevant Mission in a Postmodern Context, Paul Rothwell, Issue 27:4-9 Summer 2001

    Following Christ in Life, Chris Marshall, Issue 23:20-28 Spring 2000

    Is a Peace Church Possible?, Alan Kreider, Issue 19:4-16 Autumn 1998

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Domestic Life', Alan Kreider, Issue 20:3-13 Spring 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Work, War, Witness, Alan Kreider, Issue 22:3-14 Autumn 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Worship, Alan Kreider, Issue 21:3-12 Summer 1999

    Living on the Margins, Stuart Murray, Issue 25:4-10 Autumn 2000

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    What Difference Does It Make? Guidelines for Worship from the Early Anabaptists, Keith Jones, Issue 27:10-18 Summer 2001

    Anabaptism-World

    Anabaptism 'Down Under': The Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand, Doug Hynd, Issue 25:21-24 Autumn 2000

    Anabaptism in Japan, Robert Lee, Issue 28:18-21 Autumn 2001

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist perspective, Bill Miller, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    Korean Anabaptism: A 'Heretical' Renewal Movement, Tim Froese, Issue 29:9-14 Spring 2002

    Mexican Anabaptism: The Challenge to Make More Noise, Victor Pedroza Cruz, Issue 26:21-26 Spring 2001

    Anabaptist Network

    Becoming a Peace Church? Worship, Work, War and Witness, Trisha Dale, Issue 20:27-29 Spring 1999

    The Core Convictions—Revisited, Stuart Murray Williams, Issue 28:28-32 Autumn 2001

    Enabling the Anabaptist Voice to Sing, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, Issue 24:4-11 Summer 2000

    Getting Caught up in Anabaptism, Andrew Francis, Issue 21:19-24 Summer 1999

    The Subversive Church, Andy Potter, Issue 21:25-27 Summer 1999

    Who Were the English Radicals?, Lin and Les Gibbons, Issue 30:22-24 Summer 2002

    Anglicanism

    Anabaptist Insights in the Heart of the Establishment, Chris Burch, Issue 26:14-20 Spring 2001

    Beyond the Ties that Bind: Anglicans, Anabaptists and Disestablishment, Simon Barrow, Issue 30:9-14 Summer 2002

    Anglicanism - contemporary expressions

    A Seedbed for Renewing the Church, Adrian Chatfield, Issue 8:12-15 February 1995

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Margaret Jeffery, Issue 5:10-12 February 1994

    Anglicanism - history

    Anglicans and Anabaptists Meet after Four Centuries, Judith Maltby, Issue 5:6-8 February 1994

    Asia

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist Perspective, Bill Miller, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    Augustine

    Is a Peace Church Possible?, Alan Kreider, Issue 19:4-16 Autumn 1998

    Ausbund

    The Disciple Is not above the Master: Anabaptist Spirituality, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 23:10-19 Spring 2000

    Australia

    Anabaptism 'Down Under': The Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand, Doug Hynd, Issue 25:21-24 Autumn 2000

    Baptism

    Adult Baptism in the Early Church, Eoin de Bhaldraithe, Issue 15:10-15 June 1997

    Baptists, early English

    'Early English Baptists and Religious Liberty, Ian Randall, Issue 4:10-15 October 1993

    Bible

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004

    Jesus and the Two Swords: Did Jesus Endorse Violence?, Jeremy Thomson, Issue 33:10-16 June 2003

    The Pastoral Epistles Speak to Anabaptists Today, Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 15:5-9 June 1997

    A Stubborn Misrepresentation (Matt. 21:12-17 and parallels), Tim Foley, Issue 12:15-20 June 1996

    Worship: True to Jesus, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 34:3-12 October 2003

    Bridge Builders

    Conflict in the Church: Threat or Opportunity?, Alastair McKay, Issue 27:19-23 Summer 2001

    The London Mennonite Centre's First Fifty Years, Alan Kreider, Issue 32:2-10 February 2003

    Celtic Christianity

    Celts and Anabaptists, Chris Seaton, Issue 23:28-30 Spring 2000

    From Roots to Shoots?, Veronica Zundel, Issue 24:15-19 Summer 2000

    There's Life in the Roots, Kay Coupland, Issue 24:12-14 Summer 2000

    Children

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004

    Children in an Anabaptist Congregation, Harry Sprange, Issue 6:13-15 June 1994

    Christendom

    Living on the Margins, Stuart Murray, Issue 25:4-10 Autumn 2000

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Church

    The Subversive Church, Andy Potter, Issue 21:25-27 Summer 1999

    Church And State

    Anabaptists in the Political Realm, Judith A. Gardiner, Issue 7:2-4 October 1994

    Beyond the Ties that Bind: Anglicans, Anabaptists and Disestablishment, Simon Barrow, Issue 30:9-14 Summer 2002

    Clearing away the Vestiges, David Nussbaum, Issue 2:18-21 February 1993

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist Perspective, Bill Miller, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    "God's Servant" the State (part 1), Nigel Wright, Issue 7:9-14 October 1994

    The Powers and God's Providential Rule, Nigel Wright, Issue 8:16-20 February 1995

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Respectful and Subversive, Nigel Wright, Issue 9:17-20 June 1995

    Taking on the Powers, Sisay Beshe, Issue 7:5-8 October 1994

    Vestiges in Society (part 2), David Nussbaum, Issue 3:13-16 June 1993

    Church growth

    Are We all Anabaptists now?, Greg Smith, Issue 13:8-12 October 1996

    Church History

    Living on the Margins, Stuart Murray, Issue 25:4-10 Autumn 2000

    Unity Truly of the Christian Faith, Ian Randall, Issue 26:5-12 Spring 2001

    The Waldensians and the Healing of the Wounds of History, Ian M. Randall, Issue 21:12-19 Summer 1999

    Who Were the English Radicals?, Lin and Les Gibbons, Issue 30:22-24 Summer 2002

    Church History-Primative And Early

    Is a Peace Church Possible?, Alan Kreider, Issue 19:4-16 Autumn 1998

    Worship: True to Jesus, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 34:3-12 October 2003

    Church Leadership

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 1), Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 17:8-16 Spring 1998

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 2), Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 18:15-19 Summer 1998

    Church planting

    Church Planting Anabaptist Style, Stuart Murray, Issue 12:7-14 June 1996

    Urban Expression: Anabaptist Church Planting?, Juliet Kilpin, Issue 29:15-18 Spring 2002

    Church renewal

    Catching the Bell Rope, Nigel Wright, Issue 1:17-20 November 1992

    I Have a Dream for my Church, Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, Issue 12:4-6 June 1996

    Church, early

    Adult Baptism in the Early Church, Eoin de Bhaldraithe, Issue 15:10-15 June 1997

    Church-Women In

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 1), Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 17:8-16 Spring 1998

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 2), Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 18:15-19 Summer 1998

    Communion

    The Lord's Supper, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 2:8-12 February 1993

    Community

    A Day with the Hutterian Brethren, Nelson Kraybill, Issue 4:17-22 October 1993

    Alpha: Is it an Anabaptist Way of Mission?, Andrew Francis, Issue 18:3-9 Summer 1998

    Anabaptist Insights in the Heart of the Establishment, Chris Burch, Issue 26:14-20 Spring 2001

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004

    Community, Conflict and International Connections, Oxford Road Church, Mexborough interviewd by Alan Kreider, Issue 18:20-27 Summer 1998

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist Perspective, Bill Miller, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    I Have a Dream for my Church, Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, Issue 12:4-6 June 1996

    The London Mennonite Centre's First Fifty Years, Alan Kreider, Issue 32:2-10 February 2003

    Walking Together for the Weekend, Sue Halliday, Issue 6:19-21 June 1994

    Conferences

    Becoming a Peace Church? Worship, Work, War and Witness, Trisha Dale, Issue 20:27-29 Spring 1999

    An Upsurge of Interest, Trisha Dale, Issue 3:3-6 June 1993

    From Roots to Shoots?, Veronica Zundel, Issue 24:15-19 Summer 2000

    Network-within-the-Network Grows from Congregational Conference, Trisha Dale, Issue 17:20-22 Spring 1998

    The Subversive Church, Andy Potter, Issue 21:25-27 Summer 1999

    There's Life in the Roots, Kay Coupland, Issue 24:12-14 Summer 2000

    Who Were the English Radicals?, Lin and Les Gibbons, Issue 30:22-24 Summer 2002

    Conflict

    Community, Conflict and International Connections, Oxford Road Church, Mexborough interviewed by Alan Kreider, Issue 18:20-27 Summer 1998

    Conflict in the Church: Threat or Opportunity?, Alastair McKay, Issue 27:19-23 Summer 2001

    Exclusion and Embrace: From Croatia to Northern Ireland, Joseph Liechty, Issue 18:10-14 Summer 1998

    From Arms Maker to Peacemaker, David Cockburn, Issue 28:11-13 Autumn 2001

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Domestic life', Alan Kreider, Issue 20:3-13 Spring 1999

    Jesus and the Two Swords: Did Jesus Endorse Violence?, Jeremy Thomson, Issue 33:10-16 June 2003

    Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, David Porter, Issue 30:15-21 Summer 2002

    Constantine

    Clearing away the Vestiges, David Nussbaum, Issue 2:18-21 February 1993

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Vestiges in Society: (part 2), David Nussbaum, Issue 3:13-16 June 1993

    Croatia

    Exclusion and Embrace: From Croatia to Northern Ireland, Joseph Liechty, Issue 18:10-14 Summer 1998

    Discipleship

    Through the Eye of a Needle, Chris Marshall, Issue 9:3-7 June 1995

    Econi

    Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, David Porter, Issue 30:15-21 Summer 2002

    Ekklesia

    Introducing ... Ekklesia, Jonathan Bartley, Issue 30:25-27 Summer 2002

    English Radicals

    Who Were the English Radicals?, Lin and Les Gibbons, Issue 30:22-24 Summer 2002

    Ethiopia

    'Taking on the Powers, Sisay Beshe, Issue 7:5-8 October 1994

    Evangelism

    Alpha: Is it an Anabaptist Way of Mission?, Andrew Francis, Issue 18:3-9 Summer 1998

    Anabaptists and the Great Commission, Darren Blaney, Issue 30:2-8 Summer 2002

    Anabaptists and Evangelism, Darren Blaney, Issue 31:16-24 October 2002

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist Perspective, Bill Miller, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    Evangelical Anabaptism: One Hope for Relevant Mission in a Postmodern Context, Paul Rothwell, Issue 27:4-9 Summer 2001

    Evangelism in the Radical Tradition, Stuart Murray, Issue 4:4-9 October 1993

    Inviting Others to Know and Follow Jesus, Walfred Fahrer, Issue 9:8-12 June 1995

    Faith

    Islands of Hope, Gerald Shenk, Issue 3:7-12 June 1993

    G8 Summit

    Genoa, Was It Worth It?, Alison Phelps, Issue 28:14-17 Autumn 2001

    Joining Hands, Chris Horton, Issue 19:25-27 Autumn 1998

    Gospel

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004.

    The Gospel of Peace, Noel Moules, Issue 2:13-17 February 1993

    Jesus and the Two Swords: Did Jesus Endorse Violence?, Jeremy Thomson, Issue 33:10-16 June 2003

    Worship: True to Jesus, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 34:3-12 October 2003

    Great Commission

    Anabaptists and the Great Commission, Darren Blaney, Issue 30:2-8 Summer 2002

    Anabaptists and Evangelism, Darren Blaney, Issue 31:16-24 October 2002

    Hauerwas, Stanley

    Much More than Aphorisms, Mark Thiessen Nation, Issue 25:11-15 Autumn 2000

    Hubmaier, Balthasar

    The Anabaptism of Balthasar Hubmaier, Tim Foley, Issue 22:14-22 Autumn 1999

    The Lord's Supper, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 2:8-12 February 1993

    What Difference Does It Make? Guidelines for Worship from the Early Anabaptists, Keith Jones, Issue 27:10-18 Summer 2001

    Hussites

    Unity Truly of the Christian Faith, Ian Randall, Issue 26:5-12 Spring 2001

    Hutterian Brethren

    Walking Together for the Weekend, Sue Halliday, Issue 6:19-21 June 1994

    A Day with the Hutterian Brethren, Nelson Kraybill, Issue 4:17-22 October 1993

    Japan

    Anabaptism in Japan, Robert Lee, Issue 28:18-21 Autumn 2001

    Justice

    The Lord's Supper, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 2:8-12 February 1993

    Crime and Restorative Justice, Howard Zehr, Issue 9:13-16 June 1995

    Korea

    Korean Anabaptism: A 'Heretical' Renewal Movement, Tim Froese, Issue 29:9-14 Spring 2002

    Love

    Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back?, Joseph Liechty, Issue 6:7-12 June 1994

    You Turn Again, Dirk Willems, Graham Watkins, Issue 15:3-4 June 1997

    Marpeck, Pilgram

    Pilgram Marpeck: An Ecumenical Anabaptist?, David Southall, Issue 24:20-27 Summer 2000

    Mennonites

    Anabaptism in Japan, Robert Lee, Issue 28:18-21 Autumn 2001

    Conflict in the Church: Threat or Opportunity?, Alastair McKay, Issue 27:19-23 Summer 2001

    Enabling the Anabaptist Voice to Sing, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, Issue 24:4-11 Summer 2000

    Following Christ in Life, Chris Marshall, Issue 23:20-28 Spring 2000

    Korean Anabaptism: A 'Heretical' Renewal Movement, Tim Froese, Issue 29:9-14 Spring 2002

    Mexican Anabaptism: The Challenge to Make More Noise, Victor Pedroza Cruz, Issue 26:21-26 Spring 2001

    Peace to the Peacemakers, Dan Hess, Issue 23:8-9 Spring 2000

    Turned Around by Reading, Will Newcomb, Issue 22:22-29 Autumn 1999

    Metanoia Book Service

    Turned Around by Reading, Will Newcomb, Issue 22:22-29 Autumn 1999

    The London Mennonite Centre's First Fifty Years, Alan Kreider, Issue 32:2-10 February 2003

    Mexico

    Mexican Anabaptism: The Challenge to Make More Noise, Victor Pedroza Cruz, Issue 26:21-26 Spring 2001

    Middle East

    From Arms Maker to Peacemaker, David Cockburn, Issue 28:11-13 Autumn 2001

    Ministry

    Interview: Ministry or Manipulation?, Meic Pearse, Issue 15:16-18 June 1997

    Mission

    Alpha: Is it an Anabaptist Way of Mission?, Andrew Francis, Issue 18:3-9 Summer 1998

    Anabaptism with a Harder Edge?, Jane and Geoff Thorington-Hassell, Issue 17:23-27 Spring 1998

    Anabaptists and the Great Commission, Darren Blaney, Issue 30:2-8 Summer 2002

    Anabaptists and Evangelism, Darren Blaney, Issue 31:16-24 October 2002

    A Decade of Evangelism, Stuart Murray, Issue 2:3-7 February 1993

    Evangelical Anabaptism: One Hope for Relevant Mission in a Postmodern Context, Paul Rothwell, Issue 27:4-9 Summer 2001

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Work, War, Witness, Alan Kreider, Issue 22:3-14 Autumn 1999

    Urban Expression: Anabaptist Church Planting?, Juliet Kilpin, Issue 29:15-18 Spring 2002

    Money

    A Question of Conscience, Alun Morinan, Issue 10:9-11 October 1995

    New Zealand

    Anabaptism 'Down Under': The Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand, Doug Hynd, Issue 25:21-24 Autumn 2000

    Nonviolence

    Becoming a Peace Church? Worship, Work, War and Witness, Trisha Dale, Issue 20:27-29 Spring 1999

    Evangelism Among Asians: An Anabaptist Perspective, Bill Miller, Issue 20:22-27 Spring 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible?, Alan Kreider, Issue 19:4-16 Autumn 1998

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Domestic Life', Alan Kreider, Issue 20:3-13 Spring 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Work, War, Witness, Alan Kreider, Issue 22:3-14 Autumn 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Worship, Alan Kreider, Issue 21:3-12 Summer 1999

    Jesus and the Two Swords: Did Jesus Endorse Violence?, Jeremy Thomson, Issue 33:10-16 January 2003

    Letter from America, Alan Kreider, Issue 29:3-8 Spring 2002

    Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back?, Joseph Liechty, Issue 6:7-12 June 1994

    Praying for Peace, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 17:3-7 Spring 1998

    Studying War, Training for Peace, Colin Cartwright, Issue 28:5-10 Autumn 2001

    Swiss Anabaptism and the Sword, Andy Potter, Issue 19:17-24 Autumn 1998

    Northern Ireland

    Exclusion and Embrace: From Croatia to Northern Ireland, Joseph Liechty, Issue 18:10-14 Summer 1998

    Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, David Porter, Issue 30:15-21 Summer 2002

    Pastoral Epistles

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 1), Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 17:8-16 Spring 1998

    Women and the Pastorals (Part 2), Lloyd Pietersen, Issue 18:15-19 Summer 1998

    Payne, Ernest

    "Ideas have Wings": Ernest Payne and Anabaptism, Ian Randall, Issue 16:11-16 October 1997

    Peacemaking

    A Question of Conscience, Alun Morinan, Issue 10:9-11 October 1995

    Anabaptist Insights in the Heart of the Establishment, Chris Burch, Issue 26:14-20 Spring 2001

    Conflict and Church Decision Making, Nelson Kraybill, Issue 11:16-19 February 1996

    Dealing Creatively with Conflict in the Church, Nelson Kraybill, Issue 10:18-22 October 1995

    Evangelicals and the First World War, Ian Randall, Issue 11:9-15 February 1996

    For such a Time as This, Noel Moules, Issue 10:3-8 October 1995

    From Arms Maker to Peacemaker, David Cockburn, Issue 28:11-13 Autumn 2001

    Is a Peace Church Possible?, Alan Kreider, Issue 19:4-16 Autumn 1998

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Domestic Life', Alan Kreider, Issue 20:3-13 Spring 1999

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Work, War, Witness, Alan Kreider, Issue 22:3-14 Autumn 1999

    Islands of Hope, Gerald Shenk, Issue 3:7-12 June 1993

    Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, David Porter, Issue 30:15-21 Summer 2002

    Peace to the Peacemakers, Dan Hess, Issue 23:8-9 Spring 2000

    Studying War, Training for Peace, Colin Cartwright, Issue 28:5-10 Autumn 2001

    Political Involvement

    Anabaptists in the Political Realm, Judith A. Gardiner, Issue 7:2-4 October 1994

    Genoa, Was It Worth It?, Alison Phelps, Issue 28:14-17 Autumn 2001

    Introducing ... Ekklesia, Jonathan Bartley, Issue 30:25-27 Summer 2002

    Joining Hands, Chris Horton, Issue 19:25-27 Autumn 1998

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Respectful and Subversive, Nigel Wright, Issue 9:17-20 June 1995

    Post-Christendom

    Living on the Margins, Stuart Murray, Issue 25:4-10 Autumn 2000

    Re-inventing Christendom, Nigel Wright, Issue 33:2-9 June 2003

    Postmodernism

    Evangelical Anabaptism: One Hope for Relevant Mission in a Postmodern Context, Paul Rothwell, Issue 27:4-9 Summer 2001

    Prayer

    Recovering Anabaptist Spirituality: Training the reflexes, Alan Kreider, Issue 10:12-17 October 1995

    Preaching

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004.

    Interactive Preaching, Jeremy Thompson, Issue 20:14-21 Spring 1999

    Interactive Preaching Revisited, Stephen Willis and Sean Blackman, Issue 23:3-7 Spring 2000

    Relational Issues

    Exclusion and Embrace: From Croatia to Northern Ireland, Joseph Liechty, Issue 18:10-14 Summer 1998

    Renewal - church

    Catching the Bell Rope, Nigel Wright, Issue 1:17-20 November 1992

    Sattler, Michael

    Michael Sattler: An Early Swiss Anabaptist Martyr, Stuart Murray, Issue 16:4-10 October 1997

    Swiss Anabaptism and the Sword, Andy Potter, Issue 19:17-24 Autumn 1998

    Schleitheim Confession

    Swiss Anabaptism and the Sword, Andy Potter, Issue 19:17-24 Autumn 1998

    Serbia

    Peace to the Peacemakers, Dan Hess, Issue 23:8-9 Spring 2000

    Shalom

    For such a Time as This, Noel Moules, Issue 10:3-8 October 1995

    The Gospel of Peace, Noel Moules, Issue 2:13-17 February 1993

    Spirituality

    Recovering Anabaptist Spirituality: Training the reflexes, Alan Kreider, Issue 10:12-17 October 1995

    State, church and

    see Church and state

    Terrorism

    Letter From America, Alan Kreider, Issue 29:3-8 Spring 2002

    Theology-Contemporary

    Helping Us See Jesus: John Howard Yoder 1927-1997, Mark Thiessen Nation, Issue 17:17-20 Spring 1998

    Much More than Aphorisms, Mark Thiessen Nation, Issue 25:11-15 Autumn 2000

    Toronto Blessing

    Seeking the Source in the Toronto Blessing, Tim Foley, Issue 8:4-6 February 1995

    Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement, Stuart Murray, Issue 8:7-11 February 1995

    Toronto: Have We Been there before?, David Nussbaum, Issue 8:2-3 February 1995

    United States

    Letter From America, Alan Kreider, Issue 29:3-8 Spring 2002

    Urban Expression

    Urban Expression: Anabaptist Church Planting?, Juliet Kilpin, Issue 29:15-18 Spring 2002

    Waldensians

    The Waldensians and the Healing of the Wounds of History, Ian M. Randall, Issue 21:12-19 Summer 1999

    Willems, Dirk

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Domestic Life, Alan Kreider, Issue 20:3-13 Spring 1999

    Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back?, Joseph Liechty, Issue 6:7-12 June 1994

    You Turn Again, Dirk Willems, Graham Watkins, Issue 15:3-4 June 1997

    World Debt

    Genoa, Was It Worth It?, Alison Phelps, Issue 28:14-17 Autumn 2001

    Joining Hands, Chris Horton, Issue 19:25-27 Autumn 1998

    Worship

    Anabaptists and Evangelism, Darren Blaney, Issue 31:16-24 October 2002

    Children ... part of the church today, Bob Allaway, Issue 35:7-12 February 2004

    The Church as a Community in Worship, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 13:3-7 October 1996

    Interactive Preaching, Jeremy Thompson, Issue 20:14-21 Spring 1999

    Interactive Preaching Revisited, Stephen Willis and Sean Blackman, Issue 23:3-7 Spring 2000

    Is a Peace Church Possible? The Church's 'Foreign Policy'—Worship, Alan Kreider, Issue 21:3-12 Summer 1999

    Praying for Peace, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 17:3-7 Spring 1998

    A Vision of Multi-Voiced Worship, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 5:13-17 February 1994

    What Difference Does It Make? Guidelines for Worship from the Early Anabaptists, Keith Jones, Issue 27:10-18 Summer 2001

    Worship: True to Jesus, Eleanor Kreider, Issue 34:3-12 October 2003

    Yoder, John Howard

    Helping Us See Jesus: John Howard Yoder 1927-1997, Mark Thiessen Nation, Issue 17:17-20 Spring 1998

    Yugoslavia

    Islands of Hope, Gerald Shenk, Issue 3 June 1993

     

    Thanks to Trisha Dale and Jared Diener for indexing and Abby Nafziger for linking

    Article Archive

    In this section you will find a selection of articles published in Anabaptism Today between 1992 and 2004:

    AT 01: Anabaptism Today: Introductory Editorial

    By Stuart Murray
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 1, November 1992

    Welcome to the inauguaral issue of Anabaptism Today,the magazine of a recently formed Anabaptist Network in the UK! For a number of years a small study group has met in London to explore Anabaptism and its contemporary significance. Drawn from several denominational backgrounds, members of this group have become convinced that the Anabaptist legacy is attractive and has much to teach Christians today. In December 1991 we wrote to eighty people asking whether they would welcome the formation of an Anabaptist Network and the production of a magazine. By autumn 1992, more than two hundred people had asked to join the Network, and most endorsed the idea of a magazine.

    Steps toward a new magazine

    Because of this level of interest, an ad hoc committee of people involved in the original study group met to make plans for a new magazine. The committee asked the following individuals to serve as an editorial board for the publication:

    Eleanor and Alan Kreider - Mennonite authors who live in Manchester, where they are Theologians in Residence" at Northern Baptist College.

    Nigel Wright - A Baptist minister, author, and tutor in theology at Spurgeon's College in London. He chairs the Baptist Mainstream group.

    Judith Gardiner - A Mennonite specialist in church history who lives in East London and teaches at London Bible College.

    Noel Moules - The Director of Workshop, a discipleship and leadership training programme. He lives in Clapham in South London.

    Trisha Dale - A free-lance editor and National Secretary of Men Women and God. She is Baptist and lives in Surrey.

    David Nussbaum - A director of a packaging company who holds two degrees in theology. He is from Bucks and is a non-executive director of Traidcraft.

    The committee asked the following to serve as editors:

    Stuart Murray, former church planter in the East End of London and member of Team Spirit (a House Church network). He recently completed a doctorate in Anabaptist hermeneutics and is now Oasis Director of Evangelism and Church Planting at Spurgeon's College in London.

    Nelson Kraybill, a Mennonite minister from the United States who recently completed a doctorate in biblical studies. In 1991 he moved to London to become Programme Director of the London Mennonite Centre.

    Many people in the traditions to which the editorial board belong recognize in Anabaptism a source of inspiration and instruction. For Mennonites, this means rediscovering their own historical roots. For Baptists, this means acknowledging the influence of Anabaptist ideas even if the historical connection between Anabaptism and early Baptists is unclear. For House Church people, this means discovering significant parallels with Anabaptism and learning from an earlier restoration movement.

    The Anabaptist Network is already broader than these three traditions, however, and our intention is that it be as ecumenical as possible. Some people in other traditions are interested in Anabaptism as a historical movement; others are concerned about its contemporary relevance. Some are attracted by Anabaptist emphases on community, consensus and economic sharing; others value the commitment to nonviolence and enemy-loving. Some find the Anabaptist approach to Scripture refreshing; others find challenge in a radical Jesus-centred tradition. Our aim is to reflect this range of interests in magazine articles, and to draw on insights of members of the network.

    A way of being church and following Jesus

    We struggled over terminology for the network and the magazine. We considered "Radical Reformation" or 'believers' church", but decided in the end to stay with "Anabaptist". Of course this label was originally an insult, and Anabaptist ("re-baptizer") is an inaccurate term: Anabaptists regarded infant baptism as invalid, and thus insisted they were baptizing believers, not re-baptizing. Although using the term "Anabaptist" today could suggest our interest is mainly in a sixteenth-century movement, we have found it to be the most recognizable and helpful label. We are interested in the sixteenth-century Anabaptists, but see them as representatives of a way of being church and following Jesus that has had other expressions throughout history. We want to draw on this broader tradition and to explore what it means to follow Jesus at the end of the twentieth century.

    This first issue of Anabaptism Today introduces themes that the magazine will address regularly: "The Search for Roots" locates Anabaptism in a broad "alternative church history" tradition; later issues will explore other groups from this stream of church history. "Zurich: Seedbed of Radical Change" introduces the Swiss Anabaptists; subsequent issues will contain similar articles on other sixteenth-century expressions of the Radical Reformation. "Catching the Bell Rope" considers ways in which the contemporary church is rediscovering and endorsing convictions held by Anabaptists; future articles will explore other contemporary topics. Other regular features will be book reviews and samplings of original Anabaptist documents or illustrations. We welcome letters and offers to write articles.

    A stimulus to action and reflection

    In addition to the magazine, the Anabaptist Network includes study groups in several parts of the UK. Already there are groups meeting in London and Sheffield, and during the winter more groups may begin. Details of these groups appear in this issue. Anabaptism Today will act as a resource for these study groups, together with other material we will suggest.

    Further ahead lies development of an Anabaptist Institute to enable research into topics dealt with in this magazine. Whilst there is no facility for this at present in the UK, there is growing interest in such research. We are eager to provide resources, facilities and supervision for those who want to undertake study on Anabaptist topics. As a step towards this, we hope to set up resource centres in several parts of the UK, with books and other materials available for those who want to explore Anabaptism. At present the main resource is the London Mennonite Centre with its Metanoia Book Service, library and Cross-Currents seminars. The Anabaptist Network is independent of the Mennonite Centre but is working closely with it.

    Sixteenth-century Anabaptism was largely a movement of the poor, powerless and uneducated; it was not a scholarly elite. Anabaptists had their heart in discipleship and mission rather than in doctrinal discussion or historical research. Whilst we recognize the need today for research to rediscover this legacy, we want the network to be earthed in local church life, mission and practical social concern. We hope this magazine will be a stimulus to reflection as well as action.

    AT 01: Catching the Bell Rope

    by Nigel G. Wright
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 1, November 1992

    There are moments in history that contain an element of mystery, a sense that something innovative, creative and arguably divine is being forged. Karl Barth's rediscovery of the Bible and his consequent "Copernican revolution" in theology is one such moment. By his own confession, Barth "stumbled into the strange world of the Bible". He felt himself to be like one who climbed a bell tower, inadvertently caught hold of the bell rope and caused all around to hear the ringing of the bell.

    Barth's "accidental" rediscovery of the power of the Word of God has had a prolonged impact upon the theological world. It came about during the First World War, during a period of intense political pressure and social dislocation. Barth's personal experience proved significant far beyond his own life because it came at a particular time into a world which, whether it knew it or not, was ready for it.

    The English Civil War of the seventeenth century was a similar moment of innovation and creativity. In the midst of that huge social, military, economic and religious clash, new ideas came to birth. Creativity found political and institutional expression in ways which marked have the western world ever since. English society crossed thresholds in its conceptions of what is politically right and good, and could not go back. People who at other times and places merely would have gone their way in obscurity actually incarnated these changes in their lives. Revolutionary times made revolutionaries of the most unlikely people.

    The days and weeks of Christ's resurrection appearances rank supreme in a Christian view of history. Here something radically new took place, difficult though it is to fathom within categories of secular history. New ideas, new language and new experiences came to birth in the white heat of that event. Followers of Jesus came to understand the world in radically new ways.

    I am tempted to describe each of these moments as "revelatory". For the theologically fastidious, however, I shall reserve this language for the resurrection alone and speak of other historical events as "illuminatory". In the events cited, and others not listed, illumination took place in ways beyond ignoring. It is possible to see in each event a conjunction of revolutionary historical circumstances, human longing and activity of the Spirit of God. These were breakthroughs leading to paradigm shifts in the way a significant number of people viewed reality.

    Anabaptism as a threshold moment

    Both by its role in history and its impact on my own life, Anabaptism is such a paradigm shift. The more I read about it, the more I sense that the emergence of Anabaptism was yet another "magic" moment, a breaking in of illumination through the hard crust of resistant humanity.

    As far as I am concerned, the pivotal event in the emergence of Anabaptism took place at Zürich on January 21, 1525.1 The political and religious landscape of Europe was in a period of tumultuous change. A growing dissident group of Zwingli's followers had come under censure from the town council and had now met secretly at the home of Felix Mantz. Conrad Grebel and a fiery newcomer to town, Georg Blaurock, were among those present.

    Suddenly the breakthrough came. Georg Blaurock requested Conrad Grebel to baptize him with true Christian baptism. Grebel did so, after which Blaurock baptized those present in the room by pouring water. This was a threshold moment. No one had dared do this since the time of the Donatists over a thousand years before. It was a proscribed act since it was regarded as re-baptism, a breach of church discipline. The church was backed by the power of the state, and could exercise discipline with real force. Re-baptism was a simple act, yet it had immense implications.

    Discipleship embracing responsibility

    Re-baptism had implications for the nature of the church. To baptize upon profession of faith was to imply that up till this time these people had not been true Christians. Simply being baptized as a baby into a "Christian" society was not enough. Something more was necessary for the fashioning of a true Christian, some act of discipleship that embraced responsibility. The church had to be a committed fellowship of those who freely believed and in so doing set themselves, in matters of faith, beyond the dictate of monarch or town council.

    The Anabaptist view of discipleship and church also had implications for society. Anabaptists saw society in a radically different way from their contemporaries. Theirs was a protest movement operating under extreme conditions, and they did not usually produce carefully honed or systematic theology. Yet their theology did emerge through a ragged series of insights and encounters. It amounted to a rejection of the sacral state, a rejection of both the ideological use of religion by the state and the oppressive use of secular power by the church. This understanding of church and state anticipated freedoms which later became the heritage of western nations. Although it may not be possible to draw a straight line from Anabaptism to religious tolerance and freedom, it is possible to draw some sort of line.

    The emergence of Anabaptism shed light upon western religious and political structures, and enabled improvement. Anabaptism marked both a return to the sources of faith in Jesus Christ and a belief in the possibility of progress in society. The first of these predominated for the Anabaptists. But the movement is evidence that where people take Jesus Christ seriously and adhere to him, their witness has power beyond expectation and imagining.

    A source of renewal for church and mission

    Anabaptism still has power to illuminate, and this conviction undergirds my interest in the movement. The illumination continues to concern the way of being the church and the consequences of this for Christian witness to society. Anabaptism may act, therefore, as a source of renewal for the church and its mission.

    In the present era, the whole church must come to terms with the fact that its existence is a sectarian one. It does not occupy the dominating, central ground in society. It no longer provides a canopy embracing the whole of reality for substantial masses of humanity. It must come to terms with this existence as a dissenting minority which nonetheless has immense transformative potential. It is here that a return to the paradigms of Anabaptism has ecumenical significance. There is something here for the whole church to learn.

    My interests lie particularly in the area of mission and the ways in which renewal of the church offers potential for renewing the wider community. Anabaptists wanted to restore the true church on biblical and supremely on christological foundations. The consequent missionary impetus manifested by the movement was in stark contrast to other Reformation traditions.

    If various traditions of Christianity need to heed the Anabaptist witness, they do not need to cease being what they are. Rather, the church ecumenical might benefit from the leaven of Anabaptist thought as it relates to responsible discipleship, the believers' church, and freedom of the church from dominance by state and culture. The outcome of this is beyond immediate prediction, but not beyond creative imagination. The motive for renewed interest in

    Anabaptism is not narrow sectarianism, but ecumenism in the belief that illumination is here for us all.

    Fruitful impact as voluntary minority

    Along the way we need to revise the language of "church" and "sect" which often predominates in these discussions. When Ernst Troeltsch developed his typology along these lines he was using the language in precise terms. However, it is too easy to use the word "sect" pejoratively. What the church needs to recognize is that a sectarian reality now confronts us all. Increasingly the church's existence will be as a voluntary minority which does not hold the centre ground in our cultures.

    We may either lament this status as a fall from past glory or embrace it as the way it should have been all along, as a return to the normative mode for existence of the church. To recognize our marginalisation is not to capitulate to paganism, or to abdicate social and political responsibility, or to accommodate to the privatisation of religion - although all of these temptations lie to hand. It is rather a return to the mode of existence in which the church makes its most fruitful impact as it actively waits and prays for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.

    On a more personal level, it is impossible to read of the Anabaptists without admiring both their heroism and their Christian character in adversity. As a British Baptist, I am aware of the suffering endured by my own forebears. But the tally of martyrs produced by the Anabaptists exceeds anything in my own tradition.

    Some years ago I stood by the River Limmat in Zürich, not far from Zwingli's church, at the place where Felix Mantz was bound before being carried off to the middle of the river to endure the "third baptism" of martyrdom. Mantz was the first Anabaptist to die at the hands of fellow Protestants, and he did so testifying cheerfully. His mother and brothers in Christ urged him to be faithful to the last. While being bound he sang with a loud voice: In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum ("Into your hands I commit my spirit, O Lord"). Mantz was consciously echoing Stephen, the first martyr for Christ, the shedding of whose blood furthered the Christian mission no less than his life. In such a testimony there is more than intellectual force, but a quality of commitment which exemplifies the offering of the whole of life in discipleship. I felt myself to be at a place of breakthrough, and that instinct has not lessened.

    Notes

    I See articles on pages 12-16 and 24 of this issue of Anabaptism Today.

    AT 01: The Search for Roots

    by Alan Kreider
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 1, November 1992

    Anabaptism Today? This may sound somewhat immodest. Anabaptism, in its generative and expansive form at least, was crushed over four centuries ago. The established churches, often for understandable reasons of responsibility and institutional survival, rejected its insights. Its leaders were killed or cowed into quiescence. Its writings remained unpublished and unread. The very word "Anabaptism" became a byword for fanaticism and tumult.

    Beginning about a century ago, however, and gaining momentum in the past twenty years, there has been a growing readiness on the part of many Christians to listen to the Anabaptists. There is new interest in listening not only to the Anabaptists, but also to marginal Christians from other times and places who had parallel insights. At a time when Christianity manifestly is in trouble, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, a growing number of Christians are turning to unexpected sources for ways forward.

    Christians are turning to the past, not out of nostalgia, but to reawaken subversive memories. Things have been and can be other than they are. There is no God-given inevitability about forms of Christian witness and church life that past generations have bequeathed to us. God's Spirit, who reminds us of everything Jesus taught (John 14:26), also reminds us of undomesticated forms of Christian living. Though crushed and marginalized in the past, in our time these can address us with new possibilities for thought, action and common life. Anabaptism's new influence today is an expression of this. It indicates the transforming potential of a repressed memory brought back into consciousness.

    This article examines three ways Anabaptism is important: for its intrinsic significance, for its representative function as part of an alternative strand of Christianity, and for the invitation it presents to rediscover Christian origins.

    Intrinsic significance

    In a burst of creativity in the 1520s and 1530s, individuals and groups sprang up across western and central Europe to challenge received notions of what it means to be Christian. There were many dimensions to this challenge. After a millenium in which most Europeans were compelled to belong to locally established churches because they had been born in a "Christian" country, the Anabaptists pioneered a voluntarist model of Christianity. Christians should be those who, having counted the cost, had chosen to follow Jesus. Baptism should be given, not to everyone who was born, but to those who had experienced rebirth and were committed to the Christian way.

    Faith, the Anabaptists believed, could not be compelled. They sensed that linking church to state polluted the mission of the church without strengthening the state. Theirs was a nonconformist vision of Christianity, and adherents of Anabaptism lived in alternative ways, by different standards from the bulk of the populace. For support in this, Anabaptists developed a variety of communitarian lifestyles. As communities of faith they shared their worship and their possessions, their lives and their sufferings.

    The generative core of Anabaptism was its Christocentric understanding. Jesus, whom Christians worship, must also be listened to and obeyed. "Why should God manifest his will", Michael Sattler reasoned shortly before his execution in 1527, "if he did not desire that it be done?"1 Possibly Sattler's contemporaries did not heed the teachings of Jesus because it was inconvenient, when Christian Europe was being threatened by Turkish invaders, to espouse nonviolent enemy-love. Possibly because, if people were obedient to Jesus' injunction to comprehensive truth-telling and prohibition of swearing oaths, civil courts might cease to function. Possibly because, if people insisted on sharing their possessions with the needy, the economic foundations of European society might be shaken.

    These reasons for obedience to God, Anabaptists felt, were not enough. Instead, there were persuasive reasons why communities of faith should test and experiment with the teachings of Jesus and demonstrate their applicability to wider society. Jesus, the Anabaptists were convinced, is God's authoritative Word. He is the key to the rest of the scriptures. He is the source of hope for a humanity experiencing violence, oppression and despair.

    Voluntarist, nonconformist, communitarian, Christocentric: these themes emerge from Anabaptist writings and court records that scholars have uncovered in recent decades. The Anabaptists, whose memory was persecuted by powerful people who write histories, now for the first time in over four centuries have been able to speak for themselves. Their voices have given new impetus and self-respect to the groups with uninterrupted Anabaptist lineage: Mennonites, Brethren in Christ, Amish and Hutterites.

    Beyond these groups, however, people in other traditions are also listening to Anabaptist voices. Some, in hot disagreement, will point out "That's an Anabaptist argument!" But this put-down doesn't work as well as it used to. Less and less can people categorize an alternative point of view as Anabaptist and think that they have thereby dismissed it. An increasing number of Christians, finding that traditional Christian formulations and folkways no longer fit the world in which they live, are discovering intriguing relevance in the Anabaptists' word and way.

    Alternative strands of Christianity

    People who warm to Anabaptist insights quickly discover that Anabaptism is not an isolated phenomenon. Instead, it stands in a tradition of radical alternatives to conventional Christianity. Outside the dominant Christian traditions are medieval Waldensians, Lollards, the Czech Brethren, early Baptists, Quakers, Moravians, early Methodists, Christian Brethren, Pentecostals and African Independent Churches. Within the great traditions themselves (often uncomfortably) are monks and friars, missionary orders and societies, the Confessing Church and a variety of communities including Base Ecclesial Communities.

    Among Catholic and establishment Protestant groups a lineal descent is often traceable. Some writers have sought to trace a similar genealogy, a kind of alternative apostolic succession, among the nonconformist groups. These attempts have not convinced most scholars; direct connections between them usually are untraceable.

    Yet repeatedly the four Anabaptist themes noted above recur in these groups. They appear in differing forms and combinations, to be sure, and especially are evident in the first generation or two of a movement. In their voluntarism these groups have tended to empower the weak and (at least initially) to give new room for women to offer their gifts. In their nonconformity these groups have explored ways of living simply, and often have rejected oath-swearing and life­taking (including war and capital punishment).

    Alternative approaches to life issues led many of these groups to explore new ways of being communitarian. All of these are expressions of a Christocentrism that is sometimes sophisticated and sometimes naive, but that always points to the perpetual freshness of Jesus' undomesticable teachings.

    Why have these diverse movements, so widely scattered in space and time, come to similar conclusions? Perhaps it is because God's Spirit keeps reminding people of the teachings of Jesus. These people, often in groups that are unrespectable and on the edges of their societies, are ideally placed to say, "Why not? What would happen if ... ?" Then they proceed to give social expression to another sample of Jesus' gracious imprudence.

    Anabaptism, by and large, was not genetically connected with these intriguingly similar groups. As some scholars have recently suggested, Anabaptism itself may have been partly a product of an early sixteenth-century monastic renewal movement. It may also have had considerable influence on the early Baptist movement as it developed in the Netherlands and England.

    But genes are not the point. Anabaptism has proved significant, not as a link to other groups, but as a symbol of an alternative strand of church history and as a means of providing coherence for it. Two terms derived from Anabaptist study have been especially useful as organizational categories: "Radical Reformation" (Williams; Yoder) and "Believers' Church" (Weber; Durnbaugh).2 The Anabaptists, therefore, do not stand alone. They are representatives of a tendency that is durable and recurrent.

    An invitation to rediscover origins

    The third importance of Anabaptism is its invitation to rediscover origins. As one recent writer put it, Anabaptism "has provided a unique point of identification for many from an evangelical heritage who are taking the call of discipleship seriously in our time". The Anabaptists would have been bemused by this sentence. Their concern was not to be a model for anyone, but to participate with others in a rediscovery of the genius of early Christianity.

    Most groups mentioned above had the same concern. According to Elizabethan divine Richard Hooker, so did the Church of England: "The first state of things was best, that in the prime of Christian religion faith was soundest, the Scriptures of God were then best understood by all [people], all parts of godliness did then most abound".3

    There is life in the roots. Almost any Christian tradition can experience renewal by rediscovering insights and energies that first brought it into existence. So it is not surprising when modern Methodists in search of renewal appeal to the evangelistic zeal and communitarian instincts of early Wesleyans; or when contemporary Quakers seek to rediscover the earth-shaking understandings and spiritual dynamics of George Fox and his circle of Friends; or when religious orders, following the impetus of Vatican II, seek to rediscover "the spirit of the founder" of each order;4 or when Mennonites seek a "recovery of the Anabaptist vision".5

    The sixteenth-century Anabaptists' ultimate concern, similar to that of the early Quakers, Methodists, Plymouth Brethren and Anglo-Catholics, was to rediscover a pattern of faithfulness to Christ according to the pattern of the Early Church. Therefore, valuable though Anabaptist or Anglican or Pentecostal roots may be to the renewal of these traditions today, these roots especially are valuable insofar as they lead to roots that go deeper still, roots embedded in the memory of Christians of the earliest centuries.

    Life-givingly dangerous memory

    An indication of the power of this memory comes from a statement by the US Roman Catholic bishops: "It is clear today, perhaps more than in previous generations, that convinced Christians are a minority in nearly every country of the world ... As believers we can identify rather easily with the early Church as a company of witnesses engaged in a difficult mission. To be disciples of Jesus requires that we continually go beyond where we now are ... One must take a resolute stand against many commonly accepted axioms of the world."6 This statement, which the Anabaptists would have been astounded to applaud, indicates the substance of agreement that is currently emerging between Christians of many traditions.

    Of course, the early church is not our ultimate place of meeting final authority; that we find in the generative events described in the New Testament. Most crucially we find our authority in the person, the life and teaching, the death and resurrection of Jesus whom we worship and follow as Messiah. It is Jesus whose memory is the most life-givingly dangerous of all memories. But the early church, across three centuries, continued in boldness and "foolishness" to live the way of Jesus. It was, according to German Catholic exegete Gerhard Lohfink, a "contrast society" which continued the "foundational reception of Jesus' praxis of the reign of God".7 Or, to use other language, it was the first nonconformist church.

    The church, of course, later changed course. It adapted its structures and assumptions to the maintenance of dominance in a unitary Christian society, in alliance with the State. According to Anglican biblical theologian Christopher Rowland, it engaged in a "process of neutralization of the subversive ideas which threatened the status quo"8 Precisely for this reason the monks and Anabaptists, along with other renewal groups, arose to make their witness.

    Something surprising may happen

    The coming years are likely to be difficult for the human family. The current global instability is unlikely to diminish, rooted as it is in a lethal mixture of firepower and nationalism, economic immiseration of the southern hemisphere, and ecological crisis of increasing severity. Domestically Britain and the western world are experiencing a disruption of the social landscape and an unsettling normlessness.

    This situation is our fault: important causes of our malaise, both global and local, are phenomena familiar to us and distinctive to the West. Particularly evident is our compulsive obeisance to Mammon (in Wendell Berry's words, our commitment to "limitless economic process based upon boundless dissatisfaction").9 A related symptom is our individualism, which expresses itself in what sometimes feels like a comprehensive absence of community. In this kind of world, Christians often seem as confused and complicit as anyone else. Even our acts of warship and witness can be unwitting expressions of corrosive Western cultural norms. Meanwhile, the dechristianization of our societies, unchallenged by any real alternatives, hurtles heedlessly ahead. Do we Christians have anything distinctive to contribute?

    Insofar as we have something to contribute, it will not be because we are Protestant or Catholic, Anglican or "New Church". Nor will it be because we are well-informed or sophisticated in our social analysis. Rather, it will be because we have begun to orient our lives around the love and will of God as expressed in the prophetic Jesus of the gospels. Jesus, in turn, will give us a vocabulary, a life-giving narrative and a point of view that "are not of this world" (John 18:36).

    None of this will be easy, theologically or spiritually, intellectually or practically. Intrinsic difficulties will be compounded by experiences or feelings of apparent irrelevance. As Jesuit spiritual writer Gerard Hughes states matter-of-factly, 'Whoever lives the gospel is marginalized".10 To people who find "public truth"11 in Jesus' teaching and way, the cross will be a familiar contemporary reality. But God's Spirit - restless, creative, recreative - will not only provide untold reserves of idea and energy for faithful discipleship; the Spirit will also create community. Will we have the courage to choose as our primary identity membership in the community of believers who "critically disassociate [ourselves], in virtue of free personal decision in every case, from the current opinions and feelings of [our] social environment"?12 What memories, which heroes and heroines, will we choose to nourish us?

    In the critical period we are entering, by God's grace something surprising may well happen. The Anabaptists, after centuries of neglect, may find a voice. Along with their radical brothers and sisters in many traditions from the Early Church onwards, they may well be role models in clarifying the way forward. If that turns out to be the case, Anabaptism Today will not seem an immodest title; it will be soberly descriptive.

    Notes

    1 Michael Sattler, "On the Satisfaction of Christ", in John H. Yoder, ed., The Legacy of Michael Sattler (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1973), 113.

    2. George H. Williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962); John H. Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom (South Bend, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1984),105; Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner, 1958), 144-35; Donald F. Durnbaugh, The Believer's Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (New York- Macmillan, 1968).

    3. Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, III, i, 10; IV, ii, 1.

    4. Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican Il (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), 463.

    5. Guy F. Hershberger, ed., The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1957).

    6. The Challenge of Peace (London: Catholic Truth Society/SPCK, 1983), 78-79.

    7. Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith (London: SPCK, 1985), 149.

    8. Christopher Rowland, Radical Christianity: A Reading of Recovery (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 155.

    9. Wendell Berry, Home Economics (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987), 145.

    10. Gerard Hughes, personal communication, 11 June 1992.

    11. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989), 50.

    12. Karl Rahner, The Shape of the Church to Come (London: SPCK, 1974), 23.

    AT 01: Zürich: Seedbed of Radical Change

    by Nelson Kraybill
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 1, November 1992

    Looking for inspiration among sixteenth-century Anabaptists is a bit like exploring your family tree: along with heroes and saints you are certain to find some dubious characters you would rather not claim as relatives. Dubious characters, in fact, often play a prominent role when modern historians explain the place of Anabaptism in the Reformation. We hear of so-called Anabaptist revolutionaries who agitated mobs in the 1525 Peasants' War in Germany, l or millenialist visionaries at the city of Munster who practised polygamy and sought to inaugurate the "New Jerusalem" by force (1534-35). Contemporary opponents of such enthusiasts condemned them as "Anabaptists", and for centuries that was a term of opprobrium no self-respecting religious group wanted to own.

    Rehabilitating the Anabaptist label

    In the twentieth century a variety of scholars and church leaders have sought to rehabilitate the word "Anabaptism", insisting it is a useful term to describe a creative nonconformist branch of the Reformation.2 Modern efforts to reclaim Anabaptism as a valid tradition often highlight two early milestones of the movement: the first re-baptism of believers by radical reformers associated with Ulrich Zwingli at Zürich in 1525 and the Schleitheim Articles of 1527 (a brief Anabaptist statement of ecclesiological distinctives that helped shape the tradition for generations). Eager to find the good in sixteenth-century Anabaptism, some modern scholars point to these two expressions as normative for the early movement. The same interpreters dismiss millenarian or violent expressions of Anabaptism as aberrations.3

    An accurate picture of early Anabaptism must reflect complexities and abiguities of the movement. Recent interpreters of the Reformation era tend to emphasize that Anabaptism sprang from multiple roots and exhibited a wide variety of expressions.4 Instead of pointing to only one fountainhead of "authentic" early Anabaptism, historians now are likely to identify a range of radical reformers as belonging to a broad movement. The wider scope of Anabaptist studies now encompasses both pacifists and violent revolutionaries,5 free church and territorial church advocates.6 Historians now note that some early Anabaptists (especially the rebels at Munster) centred their faith and practice on Old Testament models, while others (such as the Zürich circle) were strongly Christocentric.

    With such a broad spectrum of theological species early in the movement, it is impossible to state the Anabaptist view on almost any topic. Nor is it possible to tell the Anabaptist story. Because the early movement was often illegal and operated on a grassroots level, it did not develop a stable institutional or geographic base. In the heat of persecution, or in the fever of apocalyptic expectation, early leaders did not develop a comprehensive or systematic theology. Rather than finding one "original" expression of Anabaptism in the sixteenth century, the historian finds a plethora of radical movements that opponents all lumped together under the label "Anabaptist". However, like a genealogist investigating hundreds of ancestors, we can identify those parts of the movement that exhibited healthy genes and produced succeeding generations of a vital Christian movement. We can examine individuals or theological streams that might inspire and instruct us today, without claiming every individual in the story as a hero or role model.

    A change in the concept of church

    By either measure - inspiration value or enduring legacy - the group of Anabaptists that emerged at Zürich in 1525 deserves careful attention. Frustrated with the slow pace and limited scope of Protestant reform at Zürich, these radical reformers parted ways with their mentor Zwingli, leader of Protestant reform in the city. Baptism was the issue that "broke the camel's back". When the radicals at Zürich re-baptized each other they broke not only with Zwingli, but with a concept and definition of church that had dominated Europe for centuries.

    In addition to being a reformer and priest at the Zürich cathedral (Grossmunster), Zwingli was a classics scholar and articulate theologian. Around him gathered a circle of young intellectuals and students with whom he read classical literature, discussed theology and studied the New Testament. Among this circle were Conrad Grebel (theology student from an upper class Zürich family)7 and Felix Mantz (Hebrew scholar and illegitimate son of a chief canon of the Zürich cathedral).

    Zwingli and his followers began to question whether there was a biblical basis for certain long-standing practices of the Christian church in Europe. Practices in question included celibacy for clergy, indulgences, use of images and fasting during Lent. Zwingli persuaded the Zürich City Council to authorize significant reform in several of these areas, but would not make changes in the church without Council approval. Like all major Catholic and Protestant leaders of his day, Zwingli believed the welfare of society depended on church and state working together in close harmony (a model of church-state relations that goes hack to the fourth century and the Roman Emperor Constantine). At a series of public disputations, Zwingli and his followers presented the case for radical change in the church. Much as Luther emphasized sola scriptura in his reform at Wittenberg, Zwingli and his followers argued from the Bible in pressing for change at Zürich

    Faced with a choice

    In 1524 differences regarding baptism arose between Zwingli and some of his followers. Despite his earlier reservations about it, Zwingli held to the centuries-old tradition of baptizing infants; Grebel, Mantz and others declared the New Testament taught that only believers should receive baptism upon profession of faith. Zürich city council held a public disputation on the question in January of 1525. In the end, the city council decreed infant baptism was mandatory for all children in Zürich. Such a decision was understandable for people who accepted the Constantinian model of a Christian society. Allowing members of society to make their own decisions about faith might significantly have weakened the social and political influence of a state-sponsored church.

    Zwingli's radical associates now faced a choice: should they accept the decision of city council and keep their reform effort legal, or should they follow what they understood to be scriptural teaching on believer's baptism? More was at stake than just baptism; these reformers were on the verge of restoring a voluntary church, free from government control. Apart from sporadic or marginal movements,8 such a free church had not existed in Europe for more than a thousand years.

    When the city council decided in favour of infant baptism, they also prohibited Zwingli's radical followers from meeting again to discuss the matter further. On the very day the council issued that decree, however, a group of them met in Zürich at the home of Felix Mantz. After earnest conversation and prayer, a former priest named George Blaurock knelt and requested baptism. With no "appointed servant of the Word" present to administer the rite, Conrad Grebel stepped forward and poured water. All present received believers' baptism before the evening was over, making that meeting in a private home the first believers' church gathering of the modern era.9

    Participants in this circle (soon known as the "Swiss Brethren") were now outlaws, and scattered to the countryside. Near Zürich the first Anabaptist congregation came into being when virtually all the inhabitants of the village of Zollikon received believer's baptism. Radical priests at the villages of Zollikon and Witikon had been in contact with the Zürich circle earlier, and already in 1524 had ceased to baptize infants. Following in the wake of Zollikon and Witikon, Anabaptist congregations sprang up in many Swiss villages and rural areas.

    Rapid spread of a grassroots movement

    Anabaptism spread quickly throughout central and northern Europe, fueled by the fervour of its proponents and by a combination of theological and sociological tensions. Grebel and certain other Anabaptists denounced payment of the hefty church tithes, an idea attractive to the impoverished peasantry. Some rural districts of Switzerland were eager to escape heavy-handed political control from urban areas, and Anabaptism provided theological justification.

    Anticlericalism was already widespread, preparing the way for an Anabaptist concept of the "priesthood of all believers". In Germany, quite independently of the Zürich circle, the discontent of peasants erupted into full-fledged revolt. Thomas Muntzer, with his "Anabaptist" theology, fanned the fires of insurrection. Catholics and Protestants alike responded to the widespread discontent by imprisoning or executing thousands of Anabaptists of many persuasions, including pacifists from the Swiss Brethren circles. Zwingli himself gave approval for the drowning of Felix Mantz in 1527.

    In our pluralistic Western society it seems strange that the simple act of rebaptism was once a capital offence. The authorities were correct, however, that Anabaptism (including the nonviolent strain) was a revolution that turned medieval society on its head. By gathering in a private home to baptize each other, Zürich Anabaptists signaled their conviction that New Testament teaching takes precedence over the demands of any ecclesiastical or civil authorities. By making baptism an adult choice, Anabaptists redefined church and reshaped the congregation on a New Testament model. Radicals at Zürich thus challenged the dominant idea that every individual in a given geographic area should join, at infancy, the religious faith of the ruler. Harbingers of the modern idea of religious freedom, Zürich Anabaptists set out to found a "believers' church" made entirely of individuals who voluntarily acknowledge Jesus as Lord and request baptism.

    Schleitheim and the enduring legacy

    Christian groups today that trace their spiritual heritage back to the Swiss Brethren at Zürich include Hutterian Brethren, Amish and Mennonites. An early document that had an impact on all three movements is the Schleitheim Confession (1527). This brief statement of Anabaptist distinctives describes a church in which believers experience conversion and voluntarily join a disciplined faith community. It envisages a church of individuals committed to nonviolent love (even of enemies) and mutual aid. It calls on church members to be accountable to each other under the Holy Spirit and the Bible. The Swiss Brethren (and generations of followers in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, America and elsewhere) believed Christians can and should follow the example of Jesus, living out practical directives of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

    These classic elements of Swiss Anabaptism - conversion, imitation of Christ, nonviolence and community - constitute the core of an Anabaptist movement that has endured for centuries. Because Christians from many traditions seek to be faithful in these areas, insights and experience of early Swiss Anabaptism provide fertile ground for study and ecumenical dialogue.

    Notes

    1. The most famous being Thomas Muntzer. Though technically not an Anabaptist (he never re-baptized anyone), opponents of sixteenth-century radical reform movements used Muntzer's s reputation to besmirch the entire Anabaptist movement.

    2. See, e.g., Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (London, 1909), 369. Cited by Mennonite historian Harold S. Bender in his presidential address to the American Society of Church History in 1943. Church History in (1944:3-14) and Mennonite Quarterly Review 18 (1944:67-88). Bender's address (and related scholarship) was seminal to a generation of Anabaptist research.

    3. See, for example, Fritz Blanke, "Anabaptism and the Reformation," in Guy F. Hershberger,

    ed., The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1957), 57­68.

    4. For a recent treatment of diversity among early Anabaptists, see J. Denny Weaver, Becoming Anabaptist.- The Origin and Significance of Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1987), and James M. Stayer et al, "From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins", Mennonite Quarterly Review 49 (1975:83-12 1).

    5. See James M. Stayer, Anabaptists and the Sword (Lawrence, Kansas: Coronado Press, 1972).

    6. For discussion of the territorial church strain of Anabaptism, see Charles Nienkirchen, "Reviewing the Case for a Non-Separatist Ecclesiology in Early Swiss Anabaptism," Mennonite Quarterly Review 56 (1982:2274 1), and Arnold Snyder, "Me Monastic Origins of Swiss Anabaptist Sectarianism", Mennonite Quarterly Review 57 (1983:5-26).

    7. Grebel's extant letters provide vivid insight into development of the Anabaptist enclave at Zürich. See Leland Harder, ed., The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1985).

    8. Two prominent examples are the Waldenses and Hussites.

    9. For an early account of this gathering, see The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren (Robertsbridge: Plough Publishing House, 1987), vol. l, 43-47.

    AT 02: Clearing Away the Vestiges

    by David Nussbaum
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 2, February 1993

    In the wake of emperor Constantine's embrace of Christianity in the fourth century, practices and theology developed to support a close relationship between church and state. Patterns of behaviour and belief that grew out of the Constantinian epoch became embedded in the fabric of Western society, and some are still with us today.

    These practices may seem little more than anachronistic irrelevances, harmless or romantic relics of a former age. Yet proposals to change such practices, or to do away with them, provoke vigorous objections. Could it be that we have not yet freed ourselves from the Constantinian mould? Perhaps it is time for the church to say that it no longer wants the state to support any ecclesiastical privilege.

    Vestiges of Christendom are most obvious in established churches, but often appear in other denominations as well. These vestiges include:

    1. Too much in a name

    Constantinian assumptions stand behind familiar names such as "The Church of England", "The Church in Wales", or "The Church of Scotland". All western countries now have many denominations. Today most Anglicans, for example, would accept that their church in fact is a church of England, one of many.

    2. Loss of prophetic voice

    An established church's role is often seen (at least by the establishment) to be one of providing stability and continuity, rather than challenging accepted practices or charting new directions. Keeping pax is more important than making shalom. An established church which accepts such a limitation can be reduced to providing religious sanction for the social consensus. This can muzzle prophetic ministry in the church, and can lead to Bible interpretation that questions but does not really challenge the status quo. This orientation also may characterize denominations other than established churches. Indeed, in recent years some members of established churches have been more outspoken than most free church members in challenging prevailing attitudes, values and practices.

    3. Comfortable wealth

    According to some estimates, the Anglican Church in England is the second largest landowner in the country, next to the monarch. Its economic interests thus are aligned with the preservation of the capital value of land and the maximisation of rents from property. At least in rural areas, church buildings dominate the horizon, symbolizing power, stability and social position - as well as the importance of worship to our ancestors. The maintenance and restoration of church buildings by appeal to public support can imply that these buildings essentially belong to the national heritage rather than to the people of God.

    4. The parish system

    A parish system allocates every person in a given area to a particular denomination, taking little account of other churches functioning in the same territory. At one level such a system is a sensible geographical arrangement. Yet it reinforces the notion of the church, not as a pilgrim people, but as a settled structure responsible for every member of society.

    5. Infant baptism theology

    Widespread infant baptism makes church and society practically coterminous. Theology associated with baptism of infants sometimes has sought involuntary incorporation of all members of society into the church. Indeed, a service of baptism for those no longer infants was only added to the Anglican Prayer Book in 1662. The preface to that edition states:

    . . . it was thought convenient, that [there] should be added ... an Office for the Baptism of such as are of Riper Years: which, although not so necessary when the former Book was compiled, yet by the growth of Anabaptism, through the licentiousness of the late times crept in amongst us, is now become necessary, and may be always useful for the baptizing of Natives in our Plantations, and others converted to the Faith.

    Theology underlying this text is an ideal in which society and church are coterminous. Are "our Plantations" those of the church or of the nation? Theological arguments for infant baptism may be different in today's debate, but earlier ideals have been allowed to stand in the background and may continue to infuse assumptions and preferences.

    6. Lack of church discipline

    Few churches today understand or practice church discipline. This failure in the face of New Testament teaching to the contrary is, in part, the fruit of a Constantinian mindset. As the 1662 Anglican Book of Common Prayer (in "A Commination") said, "in the Primitive Church there was a godly discipline ... [but] until the said discipline may be restored again (which is much to be wished,) ..." Few contemporary church publications include material for use in relation to church discipline. The wishes of the 1662 authors remain, it would seem, largely unfulfilled.

    7. Triumphalism

    Persecution of dissenters, either by the church or by the state, is a feature of Constantinianism. There is a long history of established churches persecuting those outside them. Only rarely has a former persecuting church publicly disassociated itself from this part of its history and from the theology that allowed persecution.

    In the present more liberal climate most established churches quietly lay aside the theology of persecution. It is striking how some of the newer churches have slipped into a triumphalist mentality. Reconstructionism is a recent example of a theory of the role of the church which has a discernable persecuting mentality. Use and abuse of the Old Testament by proponents of such theories is all too familiar to those who know the history of established churches.

    8. "Moral majority" thinking

    It is encouraging to see many churches in the UK discovering or recovering interest in social affairs. But it is a mark of Constantinianism to seek special treatment for the church or for Christianity. People making such an appeal may point to the "Christian heritage" of the nation, or to the universal applicability of God's norms for humanity, or to polls which ascribe belief in "God" to over seventy percent of the population. Seeking privilege or patronage for Christians and their faith does not accord with the role of the church envisaged by Jesus.

    9. Limits on evangelism

    Some people today regard evangelism amongst adherents of other faiths as racism or imperialism. Others, notably certain evangelicals, support dis­advantaging religious traditions other than Christianity. They may do this, for example, by objecting to non-Christian religions such as Islam being taught in state schools. This tendency to identify race or nationality with religious affiliation is infected with Constantinianism. Being a Christian need have nothing to do with racial or national identity.

    10. A skewed church history

    Already in 1956 Gunter Jacob, a Lutheran church leader in Germany, said, "Aware spirits characterize the situation of Christianity in contemporary Europe by the fact that the end of the Constantinian epoch has arrived."1 Yet in much popular and even scholarly material, Constantinianism is accepted as normal, and those who through the ages objected to it still receive pejorative treatment from historians. What does church history look like from the underside, from the viewpoint of those who took no patronage or privilege from the state?

    11. Church appointments by the state

    At least officially, the state often appoints leaders of established churches. This contrasts sharply with the injunction in 1 Corinthians 6 not to involve state authorities in church affairs. Of course if the state too is "Christian", and in some sense within the church, the problem seems not to arise - but that only illustrates the Constantinian reality that remains. For example, in England the Prime Minister has a critical role in appointing the the most senior bishop, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

    12. Lack of alternative models for church and state

    If churches today truly are moving away from Constantinianism, rather than merely going along with its decline, they should develop new teaching on the relationship between church and state. Lack of coherent alternative models indicates we are not yet in a fully post-Constantinian epoch.

    Interim conclusion

    Difficulties confront us as we reflect on these vestiges of Constantinianism in the life of church and society. Alternative models for the church-state relationship, such as those developed by Anabaptists, often emerged from a very different and non-democratic context. To what extent are these relevant to our society? One modern Mennonite declares

    It is at best questionable whether a definition of the separation of church and state worked out under an autocratic system of government can be made normative for a democratic system in which, theoretically at least, the government is the people and thus inevitably includes every Christian citizen.2

    Many free churches are, in a sense, accidentally non-established. They did not become free by choice, and lack a coherent and radical critique of church-state relationships.

    This article focused on vestiges of Constantinianism within the church. Part two of the series, Vestiges in Society examines vestiges left in the thinking and practices of larger society, and will make some modest proposals for a way forward.

    Notes

    1. Cited by Franklin Hamlin Littell, The Anabaptist View of the Church: A Study in the Origins of Sectarian Protestantism, second edition (Boston: Starr King Press, 1958), 56.

    2. Erland Waltner, "The Anabaptist Concept of the Church", Mennonite Quarterly Review 25 (1951: 5-16), 15

    AT 02: The Gospel of Peace: An interview with Noel Moules

    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 2, February 1993Noel Moules is Programme Director of Workshop, a Christian Discipleship and Leadership Training programme in which more than sixteen hundred people from many denominations have participated He is a member of the Editorial Board for Anabaptism Today and in this interview he reflects on his commitments to shalom (A Hebrew word often translated "peace").

    You always answer the telephone by saying "Shalom, this is Noel " What response do you get to that greeting?

    Quite often there's a kind of pause, but most people are too polite to say anything. I suppose some think, "Oh no, it's Noel's gone native! Now he's got some sort of Hebrew greeting!" I use shalom as a greeting because it is a declaration of the Kingdom of God. In Luke 10:5-6 Jesus tells his disciples to proclaim the greeting of peace in their travel and witness; where the greeting of peace is received by people of peace, there peace remains.

    What does shalom mean to you?

    There's a wonderful rabbinic story that says when God had created all the blessings for humankind he looked around for a pot or vessel in which to put them. When he couldn't find a vessel, he created shalom. We often use "peace" to translate "shalom", but the word "wholeness" is much better. The trouble with "peace" is that it sounds passive. That's why I won't call myself a pacifist. What I do call myself is a shalom activist. Shalom is packed with dynamism; it's not simply everything in quiet harmony. Shalom is the overarching biblical vision. It isn't on God's agenda, it is God's agenda, and the New Testament emphasizes this by saying we shall "proclaim the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:15). I'm amazed that a peace message is completely absent among many Christians.

    Did particular life experiences make you reflect on peace and violence?

    My father was a missionary, but also a major in the British army. Before joining up in the second World War he prayed and fasted for three days and nights. France fell, dad knew he would be called up, and felt an obligation to defend his country. Dad gave his life to God, fought in the North African desert, and God saved him. He was not militaristic, but had a "good Christian" attitude about the military and doing your duty. Yet I had growing questions about whether this is how Christians should act. In college my friends said "yes, we'd all like to be peaceful, but of course it doesn't really work."

    After years of struggle, the event that really sealed my peace conviction was the Malvinas/Falklands war. I knew there were thousands of my Christian brothers and sisters in Argentina, yet we were at war with them. As a believer I am one body even with people that are in the Argentinian army. Two scriptures were key for me: "our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20) and "my kingdom is not of this world, if it were, my servants would fight" (John 18:36).

    When I was in college in the mid-1960s I did a research project on the biblical idea of the kingdom of God. I remember pondering the warning of Jesus that we should beware of people who say "Look! Here is the Messiah!" (Matt. 24:23). Jesus was saying "be careful, you can be deluded." I believe shalom is the essential quality by which we can recognize the Messiah and the Kingdom. Shalom is the overarching value of the kingdom, out of which spring justice, peace, righteousness, joy, love, grace, forgiveness.

    Does your peace conviction require you to make selective use of scripture? What about all the passages that seem to endorse violence?

    Of course you can make the Bible say anything you want. But the Bible is a written record of God's revelation, God's word. The most clear manifestation of his word is the person of Jesus, and I believe the Bible only makes full sense when you read it in the light of the person and words of Jesus. "Blessed are the peacemakers, they are called children of God." In the Hebrew scriptures we see that God gave his people the land of Israel. Yet Israel was still simply one nation among others, and in that role she fought. Israel was trying to establish a political kingdom. The church, although it makes an impact on politics, is universal. You cannot make a parallel between Israel and the church. God has a special role for us, and we act in a totally different way.

    How does a commitment to peace affect evangelism?

    Many people seem to have a negative motivation for evangelism, and primarily talk about sin, rebellion and judgement. Of course these are all valid dimensions of the truth. But to me the primary motivation for evangelism is that it is good news. In the gospels we see Jesus clustered about on all sides by prostitutes, tax collectors, people who'd given up on religion, and the ne'er-do-wells of society. There was something about Jesus' presence that attracted people. I'm

    sure that a prostitute in the presence of Jesus was in no doubt about her sin. Yet there was something about the wholeness of Jesus which attracted her. The same was true for tax collectors, who led duplicitous lives. But the first response of Zacchaeus, when he had a meal with Jesus, was to start giving his money away. Jesus didn't take him on a guilt trip. Zacchaeus knew his need, and Jesus brought a joyful message of truth and hope. When repentance happened, it was evident in the fruit of a changed life. The message of shalom, the gospel of peace, comes in this very positive way. We shine a light in the darkness to reveal it for what it is, rather than shouting into the darkness about darkness.

    Why do you identify yourself as an Anabaptist?

    Anabaptists had a central focus on Jesus. Being a Christian was seen in terms of being a disciple of Jesus; Jesus was the model of how God wants us to be. The important thing for most Christians is that Jesus died and rose from the dead so that when I die I also will rise from the dead if I believe in him. But what about the incarnation? In Jesus God has become a human being, showing us what being human actually is. God is saying that through Jesus' death and resur- rection, and through the events of Pentecost, you can live like this too.

    How has the modern church come to separate peace from the gospel?

    Since the Reformation there has been too much focus on conversion meaning simply that you believe the right things. Leaders of the mainstream Reformation put emphasis primarily on doctrine, propositional truth and spiritual transaction. They talked about people having their ultimate destiny in heaven, and peace became personalized or spiritualized. The Anabaptists, in contrast, had a central focus on the life and teaching of Jesus.

    Even as we speak, Allied bombs are dropping on Iraq again. In practical terms, what does a peacemaking Christian do?

    There are no simple answers, and a conflict like Iraq makes us realize there is much work to be done. For all that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless and cruel man, and his people would be better off with a more righteous leader, the West has acted in arrogance. We sold him the armaments and technology, with no thought of the consequences. Then when he stepped out of line we used our weapons of mass destruction to destroy his. We've sown seeds for all sorts of bitterness.

    In terms of practical strategy, let me go back to the Malvinas/Falklands conflict. If the British government and the Argentinian government both knew that they could not count on a single person who named themselves Christian to give any support to a foreign policy that employed militarism, surely they would think twice about how they handled international conflict. If it was known that Christians don't fight, that Christians are people opposed to violence, we could have a very big impact on a grass roots level. The present conflict in the Balkans is another case where there are Christians on both sides. Couldn't their churches - who obviously have some impact on government - become a major vehicle for dialogue and reconciliation? Couldn't Christians in this country be supporting them to do so?

    Some Christians argue that we should avoid politics and concentrate on the essential spiritual message of the gospel.

    If you do that you are trying to fragment life, and you have the classic dualism between the spiritual and the political. The whole thing about shalom is that it's all-embracing. Politics is to do with people, and people are those whom God is concerned about. There can be no shalom where there is no justice and righteousness. I identify in common cause with many people in the "secular" peace movement, and abolition of nuclear weapons I believe is something close to the heart of God. But I know that ultimately their dream can only be fulfilled in Jesus.

    What kind of response to your peace testimony do you get from other Christians?

    A lot of Christians - evangelical, charismatic, mainline - think I'm an oddball, or just quaint. I get the warmest response from younger Christians, people who have lots of fragments of teaching from church, who are trying to get a handle on it all and bring it together. Suddenly they see shalom, and it integrates everything. Older Christians are more likely to say peace might be a part of the gospel, but it's not the whole.

    What does shalom mean for the structure of the church and the use of power within the faith community?

    There are a number of possible church structures within the New Testament, not just one model. To me the absolutes are a vision of the kingdom of God and values that reflect that vision. Local church should be a spontaneous expression of the people and gifts that are there at that time. Obviously there's a need for leadership, but it should be plural and winsome. It should reflect the qualities of evangelism, teaching, caring, mission, church planting, and prophecy. All these should flow both through recognized leaders and through the body as a whole.

    What is the relationship between salvation and peace?

    I believe God's ultimate destiny for all things is to embrace and saturate with shalom, to unite all things. What is happening in Jesus is that God is breaking into this age ahead of time, bringing the shalom of the age to come into the present and the now. Jesus calls us to become messianic people through the power of the Holy Spirit. We live out in practical terms the reality of the age to come. To me, Christian ethics doesn't make sense without eschatology, without a clear focus on where God is taking the world and humanity. You can only live out the Sermon on the Mount, for example, if you have the power of God and you know where you're going.

    Conversion means coming under God's rule. We realize that our rebellion and its consequences have been dealt with through Jesus' death, and that our destiny is to be part of a cosmic wholeness. It's a tragedy that we've spiritualized our destiny, when it should be an integration of the spiritual and physical. Jesus himself was the shalom person, the physical and the divine integrated into one. He models what the new heaven and new earth are going to be. All creation is groaning, it will be set free, and Jesus calls us to be heralds of that truth.

    AT 02: The Lord's Supper

    by Eleanor Kreider
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 2, February 1993

    Stripping away church traditions, sixteenth-century Anabaptists looked to the Bible for both content and pattern in worship. The article that follows is the first in a series that will examine how Anabaptists understood and practiced four worship rites: 7he Lord's supper, baptism, foot washing, and the ban. Many Christians today share with Anabaptists the conviction that Jesus and the scriptures provide authority, inspiration and models for worship.

    When early Anabaptist communities observed the Lord's Supper worship was informal. Written texts were not necessary. But a rite by Balthasar Hubmaier, a reformer active in South Germany and Moravia, is an interesting exception. Shortly before his trial and execution at Vienna in 1528, Hubmaier wrote "A Form for the Supper of Christ".1 Besides giving simple instructions for administering the service, Hubmaier stressed worthy partaking, made exhortations to love and unity, and offered a meditation for personal examination. His final emphasis was on "bearing fruit worthy of baptism and the Supper of Christ".

    Hubmaier's' Order of Service

    Preparation. Choose "a suitable time and place ... so that one does not come early and another late", said Hubmaier, so everyone will be present to hear the "evangelical teaching". Prepare a table laid with ordinary bread and wine, using "cups of silver, wood or pewter - it makes no difference". Participants should be "respectably dressed" and "sit together in an orderly way without light talk and contention".

    Confession of sin. All, leader included, should fall on their knees to beg God's mercy with the words, "Father, we have sinned against heaven and against you. We are not worthy to be called your children" (Luke 15:21). "Speak a word of consolation and our souls will be made whole. God be gracious to us sinners." At this point Hubmaier alluded to the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19.

    Sermon. Next the "servant of the Word" was to "sit down with the people and open his mouth, explaining the scriptures concerning Christ". (Was this to contrast preaching from a pulpit, or to indicate that everyone got up from their knees and sat together?) Hubmaier suggested the Emmaus story as a pattern for explaining Jesus and his mission. He concluded with a beautiful prayer:

    Stay with us, O Christ! It is toward evening and the day is now far spent. Abide with us, O Jesus, abide with us. For where you are not, there everything is darkness, night, and shadow. But you are the true Sun, light, and shining brightness (John 8:12). Those for whom you light the way, they cannot go astray.

    Hubmaier suggested further appropriate texts and themes for a homily, including a passage from the apocryphal book of Sirach. The preacher should have great freedom to choose the texts, but the purpose was "that the death of Christ ... is proclaimed".

    Response. Following the sermon members should have the "opportunity and authority" to ask questions; not "unprofitable or argumentative chatter ... but concerning proper, necessary items having to do with Christian faith and brotherly love". On the authority of 1 Corinthians 14, anyone "to whom something is revealed should teach" and others should listen.

    Self-examination. Hubmaier next suggested a four-point self-examination based on numerous Bible texts. They all point to "the-true fellowship of saints", "fraternal love", and to the worthiness of believers who have conformed inwardly to the love of God. This love, however, must be "fulfilled in deeds, as Scripture everywhere teaches us". Hubmaier summed up: "God requires of us the will, the word, and the works of love, and he will not let himself be paid off or dismissed with words".

    Silence. A period of common silence was to follow, to allow for meditation on the suffering of Christ. Then all were to say the Lord's Prayer "publicly, reverently, with hearts desirous of grace".

    Pledge of Love. The leader then invited people to stand and repeat "with heart and mouth" the Pledge of Love. This was a necessary prelude to sharing bread and wine at the Lord's Table:

    Brothers and sisters, if you will to love God before, in, and above all things, in the power of his holy and living Word, serve him alone, Deut. 5; 6; Exod. 20, honour and adore him and henceforth sanctify his name, subject your carnal and sinful will to his divine will which he has worked in you by his living Word, in life and death, then let each say individually: "I will".

    If you will love your neighbour and serve him with deeds of brotherly love, Matt 25; Eph 6; Col 3; Rom 13:1; 1 Pet 2:13f., lay down and shed for him your life and blood, be obedient to father, mother and all authorities according to the will of God, and this in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down and shed his flesh and blood for us, then let each say individually: "I will".

    If you will practise fraternal admonition toward your brethren and sisters, Matt 18:15ff.; Luke 6; Matt 5:44; Rom 12:10, make peace and unity among them, and reconcile yourselves with all those whom you have offended, abandon all envy, hate, and evil will toward everyone, willingly cease all action and behaviour which causes harm, disadvantage, or offense to your neighbour, if you will also love your enemies and do good to them, and exclude according to the Rule of Christ, Matt 18, all those who refuse to do so, then let each say individually: "I will".

    If you desire publicly to confirm before the church this pledge of love which you have now made, through the Lord's Supper of Christ, by eating bread and drinking wine, and to testify to it in the power of the living memorial of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ our Lord, then let each say individually: "I desire it in the power of God".

    So eat and drink with one another in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May God himself accord to all of us the power and the strength that we may worthily carry it out and bring it to its saving conclusion according to his divine will. May the Lord impart his grace. Amen.

    Thanksgiving and distribution. The prayer of thanksgiving was short and simple, filled with biblical allusions. The leader was to take, break, and serve the bread at the same time as saying the words of institution from 1 Corinthians 11. After the bread, he took the cup, said the further words of institution, and served it around. After all had finished, he was to say "As often as you eat the bread and drink ... you proclaim the death of the Lord ..." People remained standing throughout.

    Conclusion. Finally, the people sat down to hear the leader's summary of the entire service. The congregation ate and drank at the Lord's Table, he said, to remember Christ's suffering and death, to receive forgiveness of sins, to have fellowship with one another, to acknowledge unity in Christ's body, to "become properly conformed to our Head" and to follow after him. The leader enjoined them "to love one another, do good, give counsel, be helpful to one another, each offering up his flesh and blood for the other". They were to live honourably, giving no provocation to anyone so that no one outside the church might have reason to blaspheme Christ or the church.

    Characteristic Anabaptist emphases in Hubmaier's "form"

    Hubmaier wanted to renew worship strictly along biblical lines. He particularly looked to scripture for direction for the practical arrangements and domestic ethos of this service. He asked for a simple table laid with ordinary plates and cups, with ordinary food. He, did not draw on the idea of festiveness at a Passover meal, but chose instead to counter the display of silver vessels and ceremonial complication as celebrated in medieval Catholic Mass.

    The whole congregation must be present to do honour to Christ. To straggle in to the meeting, missing both word and fellowship, was worse than mere bad form. In this Hubmaier countered the degraded practice in contemporary Catholic church, in which folk (when they did attend Mass) often came late and left early. Anabaptists in worship were not an audience at a spectacle. The whole congregation together celebrated the Supper. The service could proceed only when all had arrived.

    Mention of Zacchaeus in the opening prayer of confession signified the interdependence of receiving forgiveness and forgiving others. By making reparation, forgiving actual debt, and so receiving forgiveness himself, Zacchaeus dramatised what Jesus so often taught.

    The leader's words of comfort ("May ... God have mercy ... and forgive us") are inclusive and plural. He did not say "May God have mercy and forgive you". An Anabaptist leader approached God's mercy and forgiveness from within the congregation, along with the people. He did not pronounce absolution from a higher status. Presumably the leader continued kneeling with the people during this entire opening section.

    To fall on the knees for an opening prayer, as Hubmaier suggested, was a distinctive practice. It is not clear why Anabaptists did this. From early centuries, most Christian worshippers had stood to pray. In the Middle Ages, Catholic Christians were supposed to pay attention when the "sanctus bell" rang, to look up and adore as the priest raised the consecrated bread. But by the sixteenth century Catholics knelt during consecration of the bread and wine, precisely so they could not look at such holy and mysterious things. Priestly genuflections during the Mass had recently been introduced. By kneeling, Catholics expressed increasing awe and reverence for the sacramental elements. Were the Anabaptists, by kneeling at the start of their services, dedicating their entire observance of the Lord's Supper to God?

    Kneeling was not the only innovative posture for worship. So also was sitting. The Anabaptists, who mostly met in homes to worship, sat around a room together. Since medieval church buildings had no pews, people stood throughout most of the Mass, though some carried short crutches like modern shooting-sticks to lean on. When the priest got to the most solemn parts, everybody knelt down on the floor. Anabaptists, meeting domestically and face to face, developed their own body language for worship. In Hubmaier's "Form" they knelt for opening prayers, and stood for communion itself.

    The domestic informality and openness to group participation of Hubmaier's suggested sermon and discussion apparently was patterned on 1 Corinthians 14. Various people, inspired by the Spirit, spoke their insights. The "servant of the Word" chose texts and initially explained their meanings, but others were free to query, correct, and augment.

    The liturgy of self-examination involved extensive reading of Bible texts and thorough reflection on one's inner motivation. This inner movement was paired with the later Pledge of Love, which emphasized the serious commitment to active, responsible, love within the church. These two movements - examination of the inner self and loving commitment to the church - bracketed a solemn period of silent meditation on Jesus' own self-giving love. The Lord's Prayer then served to give a succinct summary of Jesus' message, together with his invitation to familial relationship with Abba, and the reverent receiving of gifts that sustain human life - food and forgiveness alike.

    The Pledge of Love was a formal rite in which all who wished to partake of the bread and wine were invited to stand and give formal promises of love toward God, neighbour, enemy, and members of the church. Each of three questions was answered individually with the words, "I will". After this response each person was asked to confirm their desire to prove the Pledge by eating and drinking at the Lord's Table.

    Following Thanksgiving and simple distribution of bread and wine, Hubmaier's congregation sat down again to hear an exhortation to holy discipleship. Remembering Christ's suffering, receiving forgiveness of sins, enjoying fellowship and unity with one another, the people were now to become conformed to Christ in life. They were to live worthy of their baptismal vows. To follow Christ in life - this is a most characteristic Anabaptist emphasis, and surely appropriate as a conclusion to the communion service. The leader spoke:

    I pray and exhort you, as table companions of Christ Jesus,

    that you lead a Christian walk before God and before all [people].

    Remember your baptismal commitment and your Pledge of Love.

    Bear fruit worthy of your baptism and of the Supper of Christ.

    I commend you to God.

    May each of you say, "Praise, praise, praise to the Lord eternally!"

    Arise and go forth in the peace of Christ Jesus.

    The grace of God be with us all. Amen.

    Hubmaier's form can challenge us: 1) to consider a domestic setting for communion by remembering Jesus at table; 2) to include justice-making reparation as an element of confession; 3) to support the sermon by members' Spirit-inspired responses, and 4) to embody a Pledge of Love in corporate life.

    Notes

    1. H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder, eds., Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism. (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1989), 393-408.

    AT 03: Fear of "Anabaptists" in Sixteenth-Century England

    by Meic Pearse
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 3, June 1993

    “Papists", wrote English Protestant Nicholas Lesse in 1550, "although they were right nought for the soul, yet were they good and profitable for the body for civil commonwealths, for the maintenance of civil justice, and all good politic orders. But as for these [Anabaptists] they are neither good for the body nor for the soul: yea, they are most mortal enemies and cruel murderers to both."'

    Lesse spoke for a good many. It was almost as if he, a "magisterial" Protestant supporting a compulsory state church, found Roman Catholics (the supposed arch-enemy) a good deal less frightening than Anabaptists, whom he called a "corrupt sort of heretics". Lesse is perfectly frank that the reasons for his preference are political. Both Catholicism and Protestantism maintained "civil commonwealths" and sound political order. Anabaptism led to disorder.

    In 1553 Lesse's reformation was cut short by the death of Edward VI and the accession of Edward's Catholic sister Mary. But in 1558 she too died, and by 1561 Jean Veron—a French reformer who had come to England in Edward's time, gone into exile during Mary's reign and returned under Elizabeth—published three tracts on a similar theme. He depicted radicals such as John Champneys, against whom he specifically was writing, as typically lower class: "these men sitting upon their ale benches", distributing their pernicious books "in hugger mugger".

    Anabaptist influence hard to define

    It is not at all easy to prove how much actual Anabaptism, in the full-blown continental sense, influenced English radicals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A majority of those who fell into the hands of the authorities for Anabaptism were foreigners, often Dutch. Most of the few native-born English who were consciously committed Anabaptists pass as shadows across the historian's field of vision.

    This difficulty has not prevented many historians from claiming to discern precise features of an Anabaptist presence in these shadows. To be sure, the epithet "anabaptist" was freely bandied about to describe Protestant radicals generally. The term, however, was intended as an insult. It was shot through with suggestions of the fanaticism at Münster, that German city which in 1534 had been taken over as a New Jerusalem by Jan Matthijs and Jan van Leiden. The episode ended in horror and disaster, and surviving leaders were tortured to death publicly by vengeful forces of the Catholic Bishop.

    It is safe to say that Münster often was at the forefront of the mind of any conservative who used the expression "anabaptist" during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The term implied that the persons so described had placed themselves outside the company of reasonable people. Often it applied to anyone who was more radical than the person speaking happened to like.

    Vague and polemical language

    Presumably it was this polemical and theologically imprecise use of language that caused John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester in the reign of Edward VI, to claim that Kent and Essex were "troubled with the frenzy of the anabaptists more than any other part of the kingdom".3 Earlier he wrote that "anabaptists" flocked to his preaching and "give me much trouble".4 Lord Riche also used the term loosely when he mentioned a certain "loan of Kent and the Anabaptists",5 despite Joan Bocher's apparent silence on baptismal questions. The fact that the term "Anabaptist" was used in such a vague way to denote radicalism generally should evoke caution about taking such descriptions as accurate theological definitions. Any and every radical opinion could be labeled "anabaptist", and every radical was anxious to deny the charge.

    Roman Catholics argued that Protestantism would lead to anabaptist anarchy, principally because vernacular Bibles in the hands of ordinary people would result in endless private interpretations. This prediction, in the long term, was accurate. In the short term, however, Protestant reformers were anxious to disprove such allegations and to keep the spectre of Münster at bay by taking a firm line with Anabaptists. They argued that Catholics, not Protestants, had affinities with Anabaptism since both denied the power of civil government. Catholics appeared to do so by locating authority for church affairs in the Bishop of Rome rather than in the national government of a country. Anabaptists seemed to deny the power of civil government by declaring that religion could not be enforced at all. Both positions were treasonous to the king and in contravention of Romans 13, which commands obedience to the governing authorities in all things.

    On guard against heresy

    In retrospect, the governing authorities never appeared to lose control of the situation. That, however, did not stop a number of them panicking at the time. In 1550 Martin Micron, a Dutch founder of the foreigners' church in London, wrote that "it is a matter of the first importance that the word of God should be preached here in German [a term which then included Dutch], to guard against the heresies which are introduced by our countrymen. There are Arians, Marcionists, Libertines, Danists and the like monstrosities, in great numbers. A few days since, namely, on the 2nd of May, a certain woman was burnt alive for denying the incarnation of Christ."6

    The "certain woman" was Joan Bocher, also known as Joan of Kent, and the offence for which she was burnt was her adherence to a controversial doctrine concerning the person of Christ. She had been active amongst the Lollards (followers of the fourteenth-century reformer John Wycliffe) since at least the late 1520s, when she recanted after being prosecuted. Later she moved to Kent, and was arrested again in the early 1540s for breaking traditional fast rules during Lent. On that occasion some officials within the hierarchy in Canterbury, probably with the connivance of Archbishop Cranmer, managed to get her released. But in 1549 she was arrested again on the more serious charge of teaching that Christ did not take flesh of the Virgin Mary, but brought his humanity with him from heaven.

    Her enemies, with some exaggeration, said this doctrine amounted to denial of the incarnation. The doctrine had been popularised amongst Dutch Anabaptists by Melchior Hofmann, and for this reason is often referred to as Melchiorite Christology.7 Although isolated instances of this belief existed in England and Holland before the Reformation, growth of Dutch Anabaptism made it commonplace. Even Menno Simons, the great Anabaptist leader from whom Mennonites take their name, held the doctrine for which Joan Bocher was condemned.8

    Refugees with "damnable opinions"

    In the wake of the Münster fiasco, increasingly vicious persecution of Anabaptists of all types in the Netherlands caused many of them to flee to England from the mid-1530s onwards. About twenty were arrested in London, of whom perhaps a dozen were burned in 1535. Not long before, in 1532, six Englishmen and two Flemish Anabaptists, who met at the house of one John Raulinges in London, were discovered importing and distributing "books of the Anabaptists' confession".9 At least one Englishman and one Fleming in this group were found to hold "strange" and "damnable opinions concerning Christ's humanity". This was almost certainly Melchiorite Christology.

    In November of 1532 three Dutch Anabaptists were burned at Colchester, including the twenty-two year old Peter Franke, whose life and steadfast death inspired the conversion of a number of citizens. Significantly, he believed that "Christ and God took not manhood of the Virgin Mary".10 By the time Joan Bocher was arrested for the same opinion in 1549, Bishop Hooper was worrying that "this ungodly opinion is gotten into the hearts of many in England".11 His fears did not stop refugees infiltrating into England; two years later Sir Thomas Chamberlain lamented concerning the Anabaptists of Ghent that "too many run into England".12 Michael Thombe, a butcher of Dutch descent, was arrested at the same time as Joan Bocher for his belief that "Christ took no flesh of our lady", and also for holding that "baptism of infants is unprofitable because it goeth without faith". 13

    Sparse Evidence of "English Anabaptism"

    Whatever fright the dreaded Anabaptism may have caused in England, it was never able to gain a firm foothold amongst the indigenous population. Later English Separatists, and English Baptists of the seventeenth century, were not descendants of continental Anabaptism. The genuine English fellow-travellers of the Dutch and German movements appeared in the sixteenth century and they, sadly, were persecuted virtually out of existence.

    Some scholars would wish to qualify this judgement, or even reject it. Irvin B. Horst appears to have persuaded many that Anabaptism was indeed a fairly widespread movement in England.l14 This is unfortunate, since the overwhelming majority of Horst's "anabaptists" were only such in the sixteenth-century pejorative sense of being a little too radical for somebody's taste. Many were foreigners (mostly Dutch) living in England. The rest were isolated individuals whose activities indicate close links with those foreigners, or whose beliefs otherwise suggest possible genuine Anabaptism.

    James Coggins recently has highlighted the links between early seventeenth-century General Baptists and Dutch Waterlander Mennonites.15 Such links and influences are undeniable, and were admittedly extensive. Nevertheless, the English group was an outgrowth of earlier Separatism, which in turn was an outgrowth of the Elizabethan Puritan movement. Although the English General Baptists had much in common with the Mennonites, to the point of trying to negotiate unity with them, those discussions broke down over key issues on which the English differed from their Dutch counterparts. The Baptists were not committed to pacifism, and differed from the Mennonites in being willing to take oaths and serve as magistrates. Indeed, General Baptists were to play a significant part in the parliamentarian armies of the English Civil Wars in the 1640s and 1650s.

    It one is to speak meaningfully of "English Anabaptism" in the sixteenth century, one must produce evidence of actual congregations of English people who practised believer's baptism and separation from the world, and who believed in the separation of church and state in religious toleration. Alas, no English groups can be shown to meet these criteria. Robert Cooche, an isolated and eccentric courtier of the 1540s to 1570s, held Anabaptist views, but he was a singer in the royal chapel! An English carpenter whose name has come down to us only as "S. B." was imprisoned in 1575 for his Anabaptist views. Yet he was a hanger-on of a Dutch group in London, and even he referred to the Anabaptists as "they" rather than “we"!16 These are the most conclusive examples of indigenous Anabaptism that we have!

    In seeking for the English counterparts of the Mennonites, Hutterites, or Swiss Brethren, the historian is reduced to examining isolated groups and individuals. In most cases evidence for the careers and ideas of these is fragmentary. As with Joan Bocher, much of the evidence is in the form of court records and articles against those who were caught. Most of those who evaded the persecutors have eluded us as well! Where Anabaptism was present in strength, as in Flanders, Holland, southern Germany, Switzerland and Moravia, there is no lack of evidence for the fact. Scanty evidence concerning Anabaptism in England does not allow us to make up imaginary movements where these cannot be shown to have existed.

    Whatever influence continental Anabaptism may have had on English radicals, it does not seem to have extended to the actual practice of believer's baptism itself. John Bale, the Edwardian Bishop of Ossory, noted that "I never heard it, that ever any man within the realm, went about the reiteration of baptism actually, at any time. What though I heard of rnany, which were of the same seditious opinion, and of some strangers [i.e., foreigners] which were also executed there for it."17

    Only those historians who succeed in unearthing activities that eluded the notice of such contemporaries can hope to overturn this judgement and speak in any meaningful sense of "English Anabaptism". Bale noted, perhaps with unconscious irony, that anyone known to have received such a baptism could not have escaped death "under king Henry, nor yet under king Edward, for they both hated that sect."18

    Established, compulsory religion, whether Protestant or Catholic, had been a mainstay of social order in Europe for a millennium. The autonomy of the individual and the voluntary nature of Anabaptism were generally considered fatal to royal or hierarchic power. If people could choose their religion for themselves, then the very code by which they lived was not amenable to government control. For almost everyone in the early modern period this was tantamount to preaching anarchy. Bale's comment that Henry VIII and Edward VI "hated that sect" that preached such doctrines is equivalent to an observation that two particular farmyard turkeys are not, on the whole, admirers of the institution of Christmas!

    Notes

    1. From the preface to Augustine, A worke of the predestination of saints, trans. Nicholas Less (London, I550), AiiiV-Aiiiir.

    2. J. Veron, An Apolog ye or defence of the doctryne of Predestination (London, 1561), BviiiV.

    3. Hooper later was burned as a Protestant under Queen Mary. This quote comes from his letter to Heinrich Bullinger, the reformer of Zurich. H. Robinson, ed., Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1846-47), 65.

    4. 0riginal Letters, vol. 1, 87.

    5. J. Philpot, Examinations and Writings (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1842), 55.

    6. Original Letters, vol. 2, 560.

    7. The other term applied to this doctrine is "monophysite", since it amounts to teaching that Christ had only one, divine "phusis" (nature) and did not share in human nature.

    8. Martin Micron debated the subject with Menno Simons in 1554 at Wismar Germany. See "Reply to Martin Micron" in John C. Wenger, ed., The Complete Writings of Menno Simons (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1956), 835-913.

    9. J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R. H. Brodie, eds., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. 18 (Vaduz, 1965), Addenda 1, 281.

    10. J. Bale, A Mysterye of inyquyte (Geneva, 1545), Hviv - Hviir.

    11. J. Hooper, A Lesson of the Incarnation of Christe (London, 1549), Aijv. 12Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, vol. 1 (London, 1861-1950), 122.

    13. Register Cranmer, fol. 74r.

    14. Irvin B. Horst, The Radical Brethren: Anabaptism and the English Reformation to 1558 (Nieuwkoop: B. De Graaf, 1972).

    15. James Coggins,John Smyth's Congregation: English Separatism, Mennonite Influence and the Elect Nation (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1991).

    16. The Second Parte of a Register, vol. 1, 546.

    17. J. Bale, A Declaration of Edmonde Boners articles (London, 1561), Sir.

    18. Ibid.

    AT 03: Vestiges in Society

    by David Nussbaum
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 3, June 1993

    In the wake of Constantine's embrace of Christianity in the fourth century, practices and theology developed to support a close relationship between church and state. In the Clearing Away the Vestiges (February 1993) David Nussbaum examined vestiges of this ancient relationship that still linger in the church today. In this article he explores Constantinian vestiges that persist in wider society.

    Significant shifts are taking place in the world-view of the contemporary church in Britain and in the church-view of contemporary society. By some estimations, ours is rapidly becoming a secular culture. We could applaud these trends as allowing a more authentic biblical Christianity. Alternatively, we could bewail the loss of Christendom as a movement away from a Christian ethos which society should preserve.

    Many nonchristians oppose any disestablishment of the church. They prefer the church to retain its historic position as a bastion of the status quo: having a chaplaincy function in society, giving out pious platitudes and providing a religious flavour to Christmas. Absence of such a church, some fear, might destabilize society. Other nonchristians welcome the trend toward secularisation as a route which ultimately will see the church become irrelevant.

    Yet the existence of a considerable residue of Constantinian thinking and practice indicates that rumours of the death of Christendom may be somewhat premature. The Constantinian residue in wider society presents the church with an opportunity to take the initiative and do the unexpected, by seeming to campaign against its own interests. It may be unlikely that society will push quickly ahead on its own; perhaps the church will need to clear away these remains of Christendom rather than clinging to them for (false) security in a time of change. Vestiges of Christendom in British society include:

    1. Bishops in the House of Lords

    This part of the legislature reserves places for senior representatives of one particular church. If the state wants religious groups to participate in the government, perhaps representatives from many faiths and other world views could be included in a "second chamber" rather than restricting religious representation to one church.

    2. Prayers in the House of Commons

    Daily proceedings in the House of Commons begin with prayers. Does this suggest that all its proceedings have divine sanction or inspiration? Maybe not, since these prayers are not televised like the rest of the proceedings. It is appropriate to pray about politics, but should prayers of one religious group be part of the legislature's procedure?

    3. Chaplains in the armed forces

    The state often is anxious to gain religious sanction for its coercive activities. Christians working amongst members of the armed forces is one thing; having Christians work in an official religious capacity as ranked members of the armed forces is another. This allows the state to give privileged access only on its own terms. There are few examples of chaplains to the armed forces advising members of the military not to participate in actions they were told to take because such actions were wrong.

    4. Inscriptions on coins

    Money goes to, or perhaps comes from, the heart of the state--and the state may claim divine sanction for its finances. In the USA, where church and state are supposedly separate, coins bear the slogan "In God we trust". Every coin in England bears at least the letters "D. G. REG. F. D.", which some older coins spell out more fully: "Dei Gratia Regina [Rex] Fidei Defensor" ("By the Grace of God Queen [King] Defender of the Faith"). The inscription implies that the monarch has divine sanction and defends the (correct) religious faith. Which faith is not clear: the pope gave the title "Defender of the Faith" to Henry VIII before the schism which created "the" Church of England.

    5. The national anthem

    The British national anthem begins, "God save our gracious Queen . . ." There is no need for a national anthem to invoke deity at all. Still less is it necessary for the invocation of deity to be directed towards the salvation, longevity and supremacy of the monarch. A now less familiar verse invokes deity in a notably bellicose fashion:

    O Lord our God, arise,
    Scatter our enemies,
    And make them fall;
    Confourd their plitics,
    Frustrute their knavish tricks;
    On Thee our hopes we fix;
    God save us all.

    6. The coronation service

    In England, the accession of a monarch takes place in a church building, with the most senior bishop of the established church officiating. Why should this be? There is even a special liturgy "for use in all churches and chapels within this realm, every year, upon the anniversary of the day of the accession of the reigning sovereign".

    7. Use of the oath

    Since it often is impossible to know whether witnesses are telling the truth in court, it is attractive to the state to instill fear that God somehow will "get" those who lie. There is a strange irony here. The court asks witnesses to place their hand on the Bible--in which it is written, "do not swear" (Matt. 5:34-37)--and then to say, "I swear . . ." Jesus told his followers simply to tell the truth. The state can impress upon witnesses the seriousness of their testimony without invoking the threat of the Almighty, even supposing he was minded to help the state.

    8. Blasphemy laws

    In Britain laws against blasphemy protect the Christian religion, but not other religions or nonreligious world views. Perhaps this is a reciprocal arrangement: the law protects the God of the Christians against things being said against him, and in return God punishes those who commit perjury in the state's courts.

    9. Compulsory Christianity in state schools

    Until the introduction of the national curriculum recently, the only compulsory subject in state schools was religious education. This focused particularly on the Christian religion. Some sort of communal worship still is required. Why should the state protect especially the Christian faith? Sometimes the effect seems to be like a vaccination: just enough of a sanitised version to protect the child against ever catching the real thing.

    10. Charitable status

    Church property benefits from tax exemptions. The most advantageous of these arise from having charitable status, which exempts from tax any income derived from church property and any gain when it is sold. Specially reduced rates of local taxation also support ecclesiastical privilege. While it maybe appropriate for churches to enjoy the benefits of charitable status, there is no need for religious activities as such to be regarded as charitable.

    11. Remembrance Day

    A nation can remember and even honour those who died in wars, without doing so in the form of a Christian or even religious ceremony. There can be something disturbing about a Christian event which marks the deaths of many who died in the course of killing other Christians. For Christians, loyalty to the body of Christ is primary, coming before loyalty to nation. Perhaps the church could organize an alternative event which remembers especially all those killed by Christians, particularly those who were themselves Christians.

    12. Sunday

    It is convenient for the church that the state has imposed on society special laws for the day on which Christians usually want to worship. Other days of the week might merit special consideration: Saturday has biblical backing as a day of rest, and Friday might suit Muslims. The church could make it clear that if it advocates Sunday as a special day, this is merely for pragmatic reasons, not because Christians believe there is any reason society should treat Sunday as special.

    13. Christmas and Easter

    The state fixes general holidays around certain Christian festivals. This is convenient for the church, since it focuses public attention on Christian stories. But Would Christians object if the state changed bank holidays from Christian dates to dates of nationally notable events? When I was a boy, those of us who wished to were allowed to miss school in order to attend church on Ascension Day (a Thursday). It seemed a fine excuse! Should Christians be reluctant to work on Good Friday?

    Some modest proposals

    In working with the ecclesiastical vestiges of Christendom, which are usually internal, the church itself can make changes. If vestiges persist, theology which supported them will be preserved. If the church is to present an authentic witness to society, it must detach itself from those parts of its life whose source is in society rather than in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

    Addressing the residue of Christendom in wider society might be more difficult. What impact would it have on the church's witness if it campaigned against use of the oath? Against blasphemy laws which protect only Christianity? Against privileged place for Christianity in state schools? If the church wants to promote a general day of rest each week, why not Saturday?

    Are Christendom and persecution the only alternatives for the relationship between church and state? What other models should we pursue? How much toleration should a truly Christian church expect? How do we promote people's freedom to choose, whilst encouraging them to accept the Christian message'? Rather than seeking to maintain the privileges afforded to Christianity in society, the church should promote the free status of all religions and non-religions. We could do so because we are confident that the message of Jesus will flourish: not by legal might, nor by the power of the state, but through the activity of the Holy Spirit of God.

    AT 04: A Day with the Hutterian Brethren

    by Nelson Kraybill
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 4, October 1993

    "We dont' whack people on the head with Bibles," David Hibbs chuckled as he poured a second round of coffee and pondered the Hutterian concept of mission. "But we do want to he a city on a hill rather than a village in the valley. It's people seeking God who end up coming to us. Our mission is to care for the whole person, in community."

    A "village in the valley" is quite literally what you find if you visit the Darvell Bruderhof (Hutterian) community at Robertsbridge in East Sussex. Some three hundred men, women and children constitute this largest group of Anabaptists in the UK. Stuart Murray and I spent a day there in September 1993, and enjoyed coffee in the home of David and Fiona Hibbs after a tour of the grounds. Whilst many members of the Darvell community trace their roots back through North or South America to Germany, the Hibbs are English and joined the Bruderhof four years ago.

    "We found something really worth following", Fiona said. "We wanted to live with people who were obedient to Jesus." Having participated in several conventional and charismatic churches, with mixed experience, David and Fiona first visited the Bruderhof when they saw the sign while passing through Robertsbridge. They were impressed by the warm hospitality they experienced and the deep commitment of community members. After several periods of residence as guests, they asked to move into the community with their two children on a more permanent basis.

    A life-long commitment to community

    Quite against the counsel of Bruderhof members, the Hibbs sold their house to make a clean break with their past life. It is understood, of course, that Hutterians relinquish personal possessions and share all goods in common. But membership in the community is a life-long, total commitment - and sometimes newcomers, in a burst of enthusiasm, want to join prematurely. "They were right about us not selling the house so quickly," David Hibbs said ruefully. "Nine weeks after we arrived here we had to leave! We were still too concerned with materialism and power." Eventually the Hibbs returned, found their place in this deferential community, and now interpret the Bruderhof to others through hospitality and public relations.

    There's a lot to interpret. Why would three hundred Christians live in what looks like monastic isolation in the quiet countryside? Why the uniformity of dress (men: beards, braces and black trousers; women: conservative, dark dresses and polkadot head scarves)? Why do they educate their own children until the age of fourteen? Why do they eat most meals en masse, and how do family units function when all money and possessions are shared in common? How do women feel about living in a community where men hold virtually all key positions of spiritual and administrative leadership'?

    David Johnson, one of four ministers ("servants of the Word") for the community, fielded our questions with the soft-spoken conviction of a man who has thought things through. "The Bible is the centre of everything we believe", he explained, "and church happens whenever Christ is present among people who are willing to obey." David Johnson took us into the community meeting room, a spacious and simple hall with several hundred chairs in concentric circles. A table on one side marks where leaders and their wives sit. Above the table hangs an oil lamp that burns continuously as a reminder of God's presence. "The Holy Spirit is the 'wild card' in our worship and group decision-making," David Johnson explained. "We like to go into worship or meetings with some plans, but we always want to be flexible so we can respond to what God might be saying."

    To follow Jesus "unconditionally"

    It was this sort of openness to Spirit-led group process that inspired formation of a Bruderhof ("Society of Brothers") in Germany in 1920. Three young Christians (Eberhard Arnold, Emmy von Hollander (later Amold), and Else von Hollander) founded an independent community with the intention of following Jesus "unconditionally". Only later, after the group expanded, did they make common cause with centuries-old Hutterian communities that had emigrated to the United States from Russia in the nineteenth century. Thus there came to be "old Hutterian" communities in America that trace their lineage back to the Anabaptist Jacob Hutter (died 1536), and "new Hutterian" groups with twentieth-century roots in Germany.

    The Darvell community belongs in the "new" category, but its members identity with the saga of Hutterian witness and suffering that goes back to the sixteenth century. A long time-line wraps around a classroom in their well-ordered primary school at Robertsbridge. Pre-Reformation heroes of nonconformist witness appear first on the sweep of history, including Waldo, Wyclif, and Huss. The chart becomes dense with data starting at the

    Reformation. A prominent figure, of course, is Hutter, who took up leadership of a persecuted Anabaptist group in the Tyrol in 1529 and urged his flock to follow literally the communitarian model of church found in Acts 2 and 4.

    A sampling at almost any point along the time line reflects the long sojourn that ensued:

    • 1640s: Only 1000 Hutterites left (persecution and hardship)

    • 1700: Severe persecution; Last Bruderhof gives up community of goods

    • 1750: Increased persecution. Book raids, children taken, houses sealed

    • 1820s: Internal conflicts/divisions led to steady decline of community life

    • 1860: Renewal and re-establishment of community of goods

    • World War 1: Communities move from United States to Canada

    • 1990s: Community founded in Nigeria

    The modern sojourn of "new" Hutterites

    The struggle for identity and survival that pervades much of Hutterian history also is characteristic of new Hutterites in twentieth-century Europe. The Bruderhof in Germany, with its peace witness and radical commitment to Jesus, was bound to come into conflict with a Nazi government. Ousted from Germany in 1937, the group moved to southern England. When war broke out, however, social and political pressures militated against the German-speaking community. After a period of hardship and struggle in an isolated region of Paraguay, the Bruderhof eventually settled in the United States. Today there are nine communities of new Hutterites (six in the United States and one each in England, Germany and Nigeria). The Darvell community at Robertsbridge was founded in 1971, when a group of Hutterians moved to England and purchased a manor house and adjacent buildings that had served as a tuberculosis hospital. Today the group owns eighty acres of pasture and fields.

    Darvell has a living arrangement that is typical of most Bruderhof communities: nuclear families each have private living space in which they eat daily breakfast and two evening meals a week; each home also has its own family time in the middle the day and before the evening meal. Beyond these designated family times most of daily life is communal. Small children receive care in the "baby house"; children to the age of fourteen attend the Bruderhof school where teachers come from within the community. Older children attend local secondary schools, after which most go on to some further education. The group does not baptize children, and usually not adolescents. Membership is an adult decision to be made after the candidate has had opportunity to leave the Bruderhof and experience life elsewhere.

    Each Bruderhof is financially self-sufficient, and members of all ages have daily tasks. At Darvell the economic engine is a medium-sized industry producing wooden toys and equipment for the handicapped. There is no hesitation about using modern technology: a craftsman in the shop deftly entered instructions into a computerized router that produces intricate wooden parts with speed and precision.

    Community life is difficult

    "Touch only your own pot!" warns a sign in the children's pottery shop at the Bruderhof school, a reminder that communal life has its hazards. As David Johnson took us on a walking tour of the scenic grounds, we came across an abandoned bicycle lying in wet grass. "This is the problem with living in community," he said. "If it's not mine, why take care of it? We have to work on stewardship."

    Tranquility and peace are genuine at Darvell, and the community appears to function smoothly. Members insist, however, that such harmony comes through a lot of effort and conflict. "Communities in general have a very short half-life," David Johnson observed. Fifty years is a long time for any community to survive, he said, and many Christian communities disperse after just a few years. Fiona Hihbs agreed that relationships require constant attention: "Imagine the conflict that happens just in one family. We are three hundred people trying to live like a family!" She noted that usually it is not underlying theological or doctrinal issues that lead to conflict; it is trivial disagreements, personality differences, or debates over little privileges that can destroy communal life.

    To prevent any individual or small group from dominating the Bruderhof, there is a strong emphasis on mutual accountability and group process. On the morning Stuart and I arrived at the community, an elderly member told us "the brotherhood" was deciding that day whether he and his wife should go to assist a Bruderhof in America. This is not a decision the couple could or would have made by themselves, even though they were free to express their preference. By noon "the brotherhood" had decided, and our friends were leaving for America the next day. They seemed happy with the decision.

    It is this measure of submission to group process that startles a visitor. Members do what the group decides, whether that involves a work assignment, living arrangements or role in the community. The demeanour of members is one of deference and cheerful self-depreciation. David Hibbs smiled as he borrowed an image from the wood shop to describe Bruderhof members: "We're the offcuts of society, the little bits that are left over". Those "offcuts" now function as an organic whole, with worship and Bible teaching at the centre. There is no frenetic activity, but the place is busy and everybody has a task. Children hike to a hillside at mid-afternoon, sickles in hand, to cut weeds; women prepare the noon meal and men wash up afterwards; the wood shop is efficiently organized with ideas borrowed from the Japanese.

    Mealtime nourishes both body and mind. Members gather quietly in the spacious dining hall and sit together in family or household units. Announcements, a welcome to visitors, and blessing on the food come by way of public address system. Serving dishes arrive at each table from the kitchen (hearty potatoes and meat on this occasion). This was the week Israel signed a treaty with the PLO, and a professor from Hebrew University in Israel was visiting. The noon reading that day was a ten-minute survey of the history of the city of Jerusalem (from king David to the present), and all ages listened attentively as we ate.

    Working down on the ladder

    "Our whole life is church", explained one member. "We're all brothers. There is a ladder of power here, but you work down on it. We must become powerless, so God can use us." God's presence usually is felt in group silence or in the process of discussion and discernment; "charismatic" gifts of prophecy, tongues and instant healing normally play no part in Bruderhof life. Such gifts can lead to spiritual pride or individualism, and may distract members from more difficult and urgent matters of discipleship and obedience.

    Ask members of the Bruderhof if they are "saved", and they likely will change the terminology to say "I try to follow Jesus". Among Hutterians there is a gentle disdain for theological discussion that is academic or theoretical. "We don't even want to do Bible study unless there's a commitment to act on what we learn", a leader explained. This straightforward determination to do what the Bible says explains why women wear head coverings (1 Cor. 11), why only men hold positions of leadership in the church (1 Cor. 14), why members wear unique attire as a symbol of submission to the community and nonconformity to the world (Rom. 12).

    Other Christians favour a more nuanced interpretation of scripture that might, for example, encourage women to preach because certain bible passages infer that women taught and took leadership in the early church. This strikes Hutterians as little more than fancy footwork to avoid the plain message of the Bible. Bruderhof members are quick to emphasize that there are true Christians in many churches outside their own, but they also have a conviction that apostasy is rampant in the larger church.

    A living model of Kingdom values

    How do Hutterites do mission when the entire "saltshaker" is at one spot? That is a slightly sensitive question, and members have heard it before. "A few weeks ago we had an Open Day here," David Johnson said, "and seven hundred people came and visited. That's mission." In addition to such structured contacts with the immediate neighbourhood, hundreds of people visit the community each year from far and wide. Very few are able or willing to make the life-long commitment that membership requires. But sometimes visitors end up becoming members, and the Bruderhof serves as a living model of people who seriously intend to embody Kingdom values.

    In the centre of the Darvell community rests a large container being tilled with clothes, equipment, food and medicine for a new Hutterian community taking shape in Nigeria. Several years ago an indigenous group of Nigerians began to live in community with all things in common. Thinking at first they alone had rediscovered a New Testament model of church, they eventually made contact with Hutterians in the America and England. Now several Bruderhof communities have pooled resources to help the Nigerian group build and plan, and people from Darvell are in Africa today. This new focus for ministry has energised the Bruderhof and brought a new cross-cultural dimension to their identity.

    Stuart Murray and I left Robertsbridge on separate trains, symbolic perhaps of the more individualistic lives we lead. The rails took us from a quiet, rural community to the chaotic maze of London, where members of our churches scatter far and wide each week. We carried with us the warmth of love and hospitality that members of the Bruderhof had extended all day.

    The Anabaptist congregation to which I belong has different ways of putting into practice our convictions about property, male-female roles, and accountability. But sisters and brothers at the Bruderhof inspired me to take discipleship more seriously and to think anew of practical ways to make community an integral part of church. Their radical economic sharing is a reminder that material goods belong to God and the Kingdom rather than to me. Their humility reminded me that Jesus' way of powerlessness is a far cry from the status-seeking of a world that is too much with us. Above all, their holistic ministry highlighted the importance of bringing every area of personal and corporate life under the gracious Lordship of Jesus Christ.

    To find out more about the Hutterites, the Hutterian Brethren, and the Bruderhof communities, see the Amish, Hutterites, and Conservative Groups page in our Anabaptist links.

    AT 05: A Vision of Multi-voiced Worship

    by Eleanor Kreider
    Originally published in Anabptism Today, Issue 5, February 1994

    Imagine a sixteenth-century Anabaptist visiting one of our churches today. She might agree with many of our views and practices—but perhaps would notice a tendency toward one voice, or very few voices, dominating worship. Would she observe expectant, active listening for the Spirit's word to the congregation? Would she see that the church in a disciplined and concerted manner "proves all things" so that love and maturity flourish? Might she ask in what ways the congregation and preacher interact in understanding a text and its effect on our lives?

    Early Anabaptists understood worship and teaching in the congregation to be a multi-voiced and dialogical activity. We see this perspective clearly in an untitled and unattributed tract of about forty pages, probably written in Switzerland in the 1530s.1 In tones both defensive and aggressive, the anonymous Anabaptist author answered a question commonly put to the radical reformers: Why don't you Anabaptists attend the (state) churches?

    Freedom to exercise spiritual gifts

    The Anabaptist's first reason for abandoning worship in the Reformed churches is that they do not observe "the Christian order as taught in the word of God in 1 Cor 14." According to that text, if something for edifying is revealed to believers during worship, Christian love compels "that they should and may speak of it"-after which they should again he silent. The author of the tract underlines Paul's emphasis upon the desirability of the spiritual gifts, particularly the gift of prophecy, for the building up of the church.

    In the Zurich state church, the tract argues, preachers "presume they need yield to no one ... and especially (yield) not to us". In keeping with a tradition over a thousand years old, preachers kept a tight hold on their pulpits and allowed no informal contributions from the congregations. But the apostle Paul had commanded that no one should forbid speaking in tongues which serves to edify the congregation (1 Corinthians 14.39). "How much less authority", our Anabaptist argues, "has anyone to forbid prophesying, teaching, interpreting or admonishing?"

    The author passionately clinches his argument:

    "When someone comes to church and constantly hears only one person speaking, and all the listeners are silent, neither speaking nor prophesying, who can ... regard it to be a spiritual congregation? Or confess according to 1 Corinthians 14 that God is dwelling in them through his Holy Spirit with his gifts, impelling them one after the other to speak and prophesy?"

    All sixteenth-century Reformers insisted that, in keeping with their motto of sola scriptura, they were returning to scripture alone for the renewal of worship forms. But to Anabaptists, 1 Corinthians 14 spoke of a different kind of worship than they found in the Reformers' churches. In their assemblies they longed to emulate Paul's vision of a Spirit-gifted congregation praying and worshipping in a manner that was free but orderly.

    Our tract emphasises that participation in worship must be open to all members as they are inspired by the Spirit. The "congregation is a temple of the Holy Spirit, where the gifts of inner operation of the Spirit in each one (note, in each one) serve the common good... Everyone of you (note, every one) has a psalm, a doctrine, a revelation, an interpretation." This, with all its attendant risks, was a long way from worship in the Reformed church, where the Spirit was only allowed to speak through the mouth of one person.

    Hazards of single-voice worship

    The author of the tract pursues a serious implication for worship which is dominated by one human voice. "All judgement is bound to the preacher and to his teaching, whether it he good or evil." The state church preachers "at first taught that they do not wish to set any judge over God's word ... and that there is no authority over the word but God alone". But to our author it was clear that the preachers were not openly accountable for their teaching. Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 14 required that "an error of the minister must he treated openly before the congregation which has heard it, and not privately with the preacher". With single-voice worship, "the congregation is deprived of all right of judgment concerning matters of the soul, bound exclusively to the preachers and their understanding."

    Some state church preachers taught that the true meaning of "everyone has a psalm, doctrine, etc" and "you may all prophesy, one by one" empowered the elected ministers, and not members of the congregation, to speak. But surely, our author contends, if Paul meant only specified prophets to prophesy, he would have said so. In fact, Paul said "you may all prophesy." All the members of Christ, the whole congregation, should be ready to speak when the Spirit inspires.

    To sum up, our author's first reason of the nine outlined in this tract2 for refusing to worship in the state church comprises a double critique. Worship dominated by one voice blocks the Spirit's freedom to edify the church through the variety of gifts. In addition, the powerful single voice is beyond the discernment and correction within the congregation. Our author concludes, "The church of Christ should together `prove all things and hold fast to that which is good'. 1 Thess 5."

    Multi-gifted worship today

    The sixteenth-century Anabaptist critique of single-voice worship raises questions of how Christians today can be most faithful to a New Testament model of corporate life. Congregational worship dominated "from the front" is to be found both in churches led by a single pastor and in those led by music/worship groups. Both types must address the question of balancing responsibilities of designated leadership with the necessities of developing the gifts of all the members.

    Some churches with a single pastor allow or expect that one person to do all the up-front ministry, to "take the service". What is the biblical or theological rationale for this pattern? There is no evidence in the earliest Christian communities of formal, single-voiced, up-front worship leading. Theologically, this practice tuns head-on into the Pauline doctrine of the body of Christ; practically, it contradicts what we know of the reality of worship in the Corinthian church. Paul needed to encourage order there, it is true, but he assumes an active, multi-gifted worshipping congregation.

    Following Paul's example with the Corinthian church, leaders in our churches will continually seek out, train, enable, and make space for the Spirit gifts to emerge in worship. Mature leaders can take their own place in worship leading and at the same time train up others to assist. They can deliberately allow open places in the worship service for members to contribute ex tempore. Congregations can make clear to their leaders that they expect this approach. If the same voice dominates week after week, the congregation is either renouncing its responsibility or its gifts are being stifled.

    Surprisingly, even churches with multiple worship leadership can suffer a sense of being boxed in or dominated from the front. One particular problem is with music groups, often called "worship groups". A narrow and simplistic equation of singing songs and "worship" can result. Slickness and professionalization of worship music sometimes sidelines and discourages the very ones who should be included and encouraged. Love is the measure, and that means encouraging every member's growth, including young musicians—as well as the poets, dramatists, visual artists, pray-ers and readers among us. Openness, inclusiveness, as well as seriousness of purpose and discipline should characterise worship groups. Otherwise they will become what Paul deplores in I Corinthians 13: noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.

    Another well-intentioned approach is to operate on "democratic" principles: let everyone have a go at everything; put up a rota for people to sign; everyone should do their share of the jobs. This approach, however, denies what every congregation intuitively recognizes-that some members are gifted by the Spirit in particular ways. It is not difficult to spot people in the congregation who are gifted at leading prayers, teaching the Word with clarity, or sensing the movement of the Spirit in worship with intuitive humility. The congregation should affirm and call out these Spirit-gifts, not just pass around a rota of work to he done.

    "Prove all things" together

    Our early Anabaptist author objected to the word of preachers from high pulpits descending upon people who have no chance to respond. The author contended later in the document that the very teaching the state preachers used to give in the first days of their reforming activities they later repudiated, and practised the opposite. Where was their forum for accountability?

    This is no dated problem. Historians of preaching show that the long rhetorical sermon from a pulpit is a relatively late development. Early Christian assemblies interacted with their preachers, commented and asked questions. Even as late as the fifth century, sermons of the famous Augustine were dialogical.3 Those early preachers had to he able to explain further, to illustrate, to apply the word to their life on the basis of people's questions.

    Some will object that this kind of interactive discernment of the word between preachers and people is impossible in big church buildings. Acoustics and seating arrangements in many modern churches, as well as habits of etiquette, militate against easy interchange about meanings and applications. These are indeed impediments, as is the assumption that successful churches will he large ones. There is nothing more "Constantinian" in the life of our churches than the assumption that big is beautiful.

    Our churches would do well to listen to the warnings of our sixteenth-century Anabaptist. There is undoubtedly a place for carefully crafted addresses on theology or biblical exposition. But is the typical Sunday assembly really that place? Our preachers (and why shouldn't we have several per congregation?) have the opportunity to present the story of God and God's people in ways that invite, convince, and inspire us to live courageously the way of Jesus. They can do this spiritual task in vigourous interaction with us, the members of the church, and our everyday life concerns. There is an exciting hope in this vision which can unite us with our anonymous Anabaptist author in the pursuit of a church which is truly "a temple of the Holy Spirit".

    Eleanor Kreider is a Mennonite author and lecturer, and was serving as a Theologian-in-Residence at Northern Baptist College in Manchester when she wrote this article. Her, first article in the Anabaptist Worship Series was on the Lords Supper (February 1993).

    Notes

    1. See Shem Peachey and Paul Peachey, eds., "Answer of Some Who Are Called (Ana)baptists Why They Do Not attend the Churches: A Swiss Brethren Tract", Mennonite Quarterly Review 45 (1971:5-32). In 1560, Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's successor as leader of the Zurich reformation, published a major work against the Swiss Anabaptists entitled Der Widertoeufferen ursprung (Zurich, Christoph Froschauer, 1560). Bullinger published the Anabaptist tract in order to refute it.

    2. Additional reasons include: the preachers have forsaken their own earlier teachings (whereas the Anabaptists are faithful to the Reformers,' early insights); the preachers are colluding in violent suppression of dissenters; the preachers employ the sword of the state to compel faith and to protect their own interests; the Reformers' state church is not a disciplined church, but is a place of lovelessness, untruthful slander, infant baptism, and a general imperviousness to the work of the Holy Spirit.

    3. G. Wright Doyle, "Augustine's Sermonic Method", Westminster Theological Journal 39 (1976-1977), 236.

    AT 06: Children in an Anabaptist Congregation

    by Harry Sprange
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 6, June 1994

    We who identify with Anabaptist theology are committed to the concept of church as a voluntary association of believers. Few of us, perhaps, have grappled fully with how children fit into this understanding. Many of our congregations continue the tradition of Sunday School, even if it is disguised under a variety of more attractive names.

    The problem with Sunday School is that it often is not a voluntary association of believers! There are at least four categories of children who attend: 1) those who believe and want to he there, 2) those who believe but do not want to be there, 3) those who do not believe but want to be there, 4) those who do not believe and do not want to be there. Many preachers would struggle to address these four different audiences at the same time in the worship service. Yet week after week, we expect our children's workers to cope with this scenario.

    Children who want to be part of the church

    A few years ago, after a move of the Holy Spirit upon our primary school age children, they refused to go out to Sunday School on communion Sundays: they wanted to be part of the church! There was nothing particularly attractive for the kids in our traditional Baptist communion service; I can't imagine a sip of blackcurrant juice and a tiny cube of bread being sufficient to entice them to remain. I believe there was a spiritual desire within them; something was telling them they are part of the body of Christ.

    Some house churches have jettisoned separate Sunday children's classes, and insist on all being together for "family worship". This rarely works, and I have visited only one church where children, teens, and adults flowed together comfortably in worship. It is more common for the meeting to be disrupted by screaming babies, distracted by uncontrolled toddlers, and disturbed by negative vibes emanating from switched-out teens.

    Should we force children to attend church at all? We cannot avoid the biblical expectation that parents are responsible for disciplining and discipling their children (Eph. 6:4); success in this is a requirement for church leadership (1 Tim. 3:4-5,12; Tit: l:6). But can we apply to church a mandate that addresses family without succumbing to the spirit behind the Conventicle Act of 1664 (which fined those who refused to attend state-controlled worship)?

    I am not arguing for a division of children into "saved" and "unsaved", since that can place tremendous emotional pressure on them. It also can leave those who grow gradually into faith with a feeling of rejection because they have not experienced a "crisis conversion". Whatever the exact meaning of a believer's children being "holy" (1 Cor. 7:14), at least it gives biblical warrant for accepting children into the church family (without needing to go all the way down the road of covenant theology and ending up with infant baptism).

    Room for children to grow and learn

    I see need in the church for voluntary meetings of both children and teens where they can learn radical discipleship. In my experience, we have experimented with children in house groups in addition to a traditional Sunday School programme and evangelistic meetings. Teaching discipleship works well when all the children present are motivated to learn and want to grow spiritually. Parents who simply "send" their kids along to such meetings will kill the effort.

    Instead of constantly pressing children for a "decision", we need to teach those who clearly are committed what it means to follow Jesus in today's world - including the concept of laying down one's life for others, sharing our faith and material resources. When God speaks to a church on a given issue - giving, evangelism, or anything else - then it often is essential to communicate that concern to the believing children. We may need to find a time and place when we can adapt the message to their age and experience, but we can pass on the essence of the challenge.

    Faith is something caught, not taught. Are we nurturing our children so they know God and trust him? Do they live in expectation of his provision and intervention in their lives? If not, is it any wonder that many children in our churches, who genuinely profess conversion, appear to be bored with being Christians after a few months? Could it just be that we have expected nothing of them?

    Children ministering to a congregation

    In the Revival of 1859 in Scotland, a three year-old girl in Eyemouth gave her mother assurance of salvation by quoting the text she heard the minister preach on the preceding day. An eight year-old boy preached in Findochty, when "more were convicted and converted than on any other occasion". A ten year-old boy prayed publicly in Hopeman for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and revival broke out. In Portessie an elder of the Scot's Free Kirk was horrified one night to arrive home and find his fourteen year-old daughter preaching to a house full of people listening intently. Even C. H. Spurgeon (no friend of the Anabaptists, methinks!) concluded, "We have never developed the capabilities of youth as we should have done."

    Successful growth in any area of life depends on the right combination of intake and output. Constant eating with no exercise is a recipe for disaster. If all we do is spoon feed teaching into our young people and provide no outlet for service, let us not be surprised if they die off spiritually. After the 1989 Lausanne Congress in Manila, Phil Bogosian believed God was saying to him, "Since you do not teach your young people to give their lives to reach the world, they will be taken from you by the world. They will be useless to me and a great grief to you." Let us who seek to be on the forefront of the radical tradition today beware lest we fail to pass on our heritage to the next generation.

    Harry Sprange was a Baptist minister in Edinburgh and a children's pastor in Leith. When he wrote this article he was director of Kingdom Kids Scotland. He is the author of Children in the Revival: 300 Years of God's Work in Scotland.

    Editors' note: We invite readers to respond to Harry Sprange's concerns about children in an Anabaptist church in the the Children and Anabaptism forum. What have you found works for children in your congregation?

    AT 06: Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back?

    by Joseph Liechty
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 6, June 1994

    Late in the winter of 1569, Dirk Willems of Holland was discovered as an Anabaptist, and a thief catcher came to arrest him at the village of Asperen. Running for his life, Dirk came to a body of water still coated with ice. After making his way across in great peril, he realised his pursuer had fallen through into the freezing water.1

    Turning back, Dirk ran to the struggling man and dragged him safely to shore. The thief catcher wanted to release Dirk, but a burgomaster - having appeared on the scene - reminded the man he was under oath to deliver criminals to justice. Dirk was bound off to prison, interrogated, and tortured in an unsuccessful effort to make him renounce his faith. He was tried and found guilty of having been rebaptised, of holding secret meetings in his home, and of allowing baptism there - all of which he freely confessed.

    "Persisting obstinately in his opinion", Dirk was sentenced to execution by fire. On the day of execution, a strong east wind blew the flames away from his upper body so that death was long delayed. The same wind carried his voice to the next town, where people heard him cry more than seventy times, "O my Lord; my God". The judge present was "finally filled with sorrow and regret". Wheeling his horse around so he saw no more, he ordered the executioner, "Dispatch the man with a quick death."

    A child's perception of injustice

    When I first encountered this story more than thirty years ago as a child, my attention was riveted on what happened to Dirk. For his great goodness he received in return imprisonment, torture, and death. That he should suffer such a fate violated my childish sense of justice and fair play. My notion of how the world worked was undone, and I needed to find a new understanding.

    Trying to understand Dirk's story as an adult, I have come to make some strong claims about its significance. I believe that in the Martyrs' Mirror, a book filled with heroic examples of Christian obedience to Christ, the story of Dirk's simple action is the embodiment of some of the great strengths of Anabaptism. I also believe Dirk transcended and healed some great weaknesses of Anabaptism. In this action he obeyed Jesus' commandment to be perfect as his heavenly father is perfect - that is, to love fully and indiscriminately.

    What would I do if ... ?

    1569 was a bad year to be an Anabaptist. The Martyrs' Mirror lists a number of martyrs that year, some of whom lived close enough to Dirk's home that he would surely have known of their deaths. I imagine the prospect of death was constantly with him, a steady part of his inner life. I imagine he frequently asked himself, "What would I do if ...?" or, more likely in his circumstances, "What will I do when ...?" His ruminations must have been shaped to a great extent by the teaching of the little Anabaptist fellowships, one of which met in his home. With arrest and death ever-present dangers, Anabaptists spent considerable time preparing one another to meet them.

    One source of instruction was letters from prison. A young purse-maker and minister of the word named Hendrick Alewijns, after his arrest in 1568, wrote many letters to his wife, three small children, and fellow Anabaptists. "There is no fear in love," he wrote, but "fearless ones run through patience ... not out of, but into the conflict that is set before us, and look not at the dreadful tyranny, but unto Jesus, the Captain, the Author and Finisher of our faith." Alewijns and other Anabaptists did not mean they sought persecution, nor did they deny themselves the right to flee from it. But even so, this fearlessness was a difficult expectation. I imagine that when Dirk considered haw he might respond to capture, he conjured up an array of options, ranging from fleeing at one extreme to calm acceptance of arrest at the other.

    I try to imagine what thoughts filled Dirk's mind as he ran, followed closely by the thief catcher. Did fear and danger dull his mind or make it keen? In either case his thoughts must have been dominated by the effort to save his own life. In at least some small corner of his consciousness, he must have been considering what he had done in fleeing and what he might do if caught. Would he be able to brave torture? Would he renounce his faith? Such tormenting thoughts must have reduced him to so great a fear that, when he came to a body of water, he ran across the thin ice. He risked immediate death by drowning rather than submitting to the prospect of capture, imprisonment, torture, and death. But having saved his own life, Dirk turned back across the ice to save his drowning pursuer.

    As a child, my attention seized first on Dirk's sad reward of death for virtue. But my focus soon turned to an earlier point, less dramatic but more mysterious, when Dirk turned back across the ice. It is this action I can hardly comprehend, that I return to time and again. I am surprised that Dirk even noticed his pursuer had fallen through the ice. I would have expected his desire to live was great enough to drive him forward, ears closed and eyes fixed ahead. Even if he heard cracking ice or a cry for help, I would have expected the desire to live to send him fleeing. Why did he turn back?

    Intuitive response to evil

    I believe that turning back was not a rational ethical decision, but an intuitive response. The properties of thin ice may almost have dictated intuitive action by leaving him little time to respond. Even if the thief catcher somehow caught hold of a piece of solid ice, and Dirk had a few moments to consider, I still believe his decision was more intuitive than rational. No combination of mental calculations was likely to take him back across the ice.

    Perhaps Christianity, with its teaching on loving the enemy, comes closer than any other religious or ethical system to requiring Dirk to do what he did. But where would the command "love your enemies" have led Dirk? He had no reason to believe he could save the thief catcher. The more likely conclusion would have been two deaths, and loving the enemy does not demand futile suicide. In those places where Jesus discusses loving the enemy, none of his examples comes close to requiring that one die for the enemy. If in fact there were others at the scene, the thief catcher's compatriots, who could condemn Dirk if he had seen the man in distress as their business?

    Perhaps chief among the considerations in Dirk's mind would have been the doctrine of two kingdoms, a basic Anabaptist motif. "There were from the beginning of the world two classes of people, a people of God and a people of the devil," wrote one Anabaptist martyr. The children of God "have always been persecuted and dispersed, so that they have always been in a minority, and sometimes very few in number, so that they had to hide themselves in caves and dens ... but the ungodly have always been powerful, and have prevailed."

    When Dirk looked back on the thief catcher in the water, he saw not just a man near death, but a devouring ravening wolf. He saw not just an individual, but a manifestation of the kingdom of darkness, an agent of the devil himself. Anabaptists also frequently took an image from the book of Revelation. Martyrs, slain for the word of God, wait under the altar in heaven, crying to God, "how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?" (Rev. 6:10) When Dirk looked back, he might have seen an answer to the martyrs' question - God delivering justice here and now. Or, he could have drawn on the image of Israel's deliverance from Egyptian captivity: his crossing of the ice was the Red Sea parted; the floundering thief catcher was horse and rider thrown into the sea.

    Dirk had available to him sound biblical images to justify his running on and leaving the thief catcher to his fate. With the time he had gained, capture was far from inevitable. His crime in the Netherlands was not crime everywhere; he could have fled to other territories and reasonably hoped for a long and peaceful life.

    Other examples of sacrificial love

    Examining the usual range of sacrificial actions can take us some distance in explaining Dirk's decision to rescue his pursuer. There are many examples of parents sacrificing for children. I recall the story of an American soldier in Vietnam who threw his body on a grenade, saving the lives of his comrades. Less frequent are accounts of people who gave their lives for someone unknown to them. One example is Father Maximilian Kolb, who chose to die in place of another innocent man in a Nazi concentration camp. Examples of people risking their lives for enemies are scarce indeed. A few years ago the South African bishop Desmond Tutu risked his life to save a suspected police informer from an angry mob. That is remarkable, but it is still a case of the powerful acting to save the weak, and that is a long way from what Dirk did.

    We may understand better how radical was Dirk's action if we transpose the Tutu and Vietnam stories into parallels of Dirk's situation. In the Tutu story, we would have to imagine that the informer, having almost reached safety, turned back to save one of his pursuers. We must imagine that the American soldier, fleeing what he expected to be torture in a POW camp, risked his life to save a Viet Cong soldier. These transpositions are difficult to imagine.

    I am convinced that the only force strong enough to take Dirk back across the ice was an extraordinary outpouring of love. The only kind of love I know that extends to enemies is the love taught and lived by Jesus. When Jesus' earliest followers struggled to understand the mystery of his death, they found themselves extending the definition of love: Jesus had died for them "when we were God's enemies". We must allow that precisely this definition of love - a love that reaches so far as to die for enemies - had shaped Dirk's character to such an extent that in circumstances of gravest personal danger he was able to express his love in an intuitive response.

    Did the Anabaptists love their enemies? We may be sure they taught it; they were never ones to shirk Jesus' hard sayings. They also had the example of Jesus in the way of the cross, which the Anabaptists generally understood as requiring the willing, nonviolent acceptance of suffering. Their frequently cited experience of having been loved by God before they loved him must have reinforced the teaching and example of Jesus. At very least they had thrown away their swords, so they could not respond to their enemies in the conventional ways.

    The enemy as wolf and lost lamb

    Like a nation at war, Anabaptists needed to maintain identity and bind themselves together in unity through the stresses of conflict. To this end they had positive means: community, discipleship and pacifism. But the Anabaptists also had negative ways of maintaining group cohesion. Like civilians uniting behind a war effort, Anabaptists were inclined to dehumanise their enemies by identifying them as entirely evil. They did this with the doctrine of two kingdoms: they were children of light, their enemies children of darkness; they were lambs, their enemies wolves. Today, when dualistic thinking is condemned as the root of many evils, the doctrine of two kingdoms has neglected merits. I would argue that without some form of a two kingdoms doctrine we are unlikely to understand fully Jesus' teachings or the demands of discipleship.

    Yet the two kingdoms doctrine on its own makes a sorely deficient world view. Christians in the Anabaptist's position are called to do the nearly impossible: to see their persecutors as both wolves and lost lambs, as both servants of evil and confused neighbours. The contempt for enemies inherent in two kingdom thinking, coupled with bitter experience, must have stained the Anabaptists' souls.

    It must have seemed to Anabaptists that terms of life were being dictated to them, and they must simply respond as well and faithfully as they could. The battle could hardly have been less equal as the Anabaptists struggled against the combined forces of Church and State with nothing more than spiritual weapons. When the weak attempt to love their powerful enemies, the results must be primarily passive and internal. Always hunted and sometimes on the run, they had no leisure to ask themselves, what can we do to express enemy-love in a positive way? If they could simply resist the spirit-deforming influence of hatred, they had accomplished much.

    In these circumstances, the moment when Dirk stood poised between running on and turning back held a more than personal significance. The opportunity before him was a rare one, and he was choosing for all the Anabaptists who never had a choice either to run to freedom or to act on love for their enemies. The path Dirk took would be the testimony for a whole community of how deeply they had been penetrated by the love for enemies inherent in the cross they had chosen to bear.

    In the next moment, when Dirk chose to turn back, he stood on holy ground, where things we normally hold apart were bound together. Dirk had accomplished the almost impossible: he had seen the thief catcher as both an agent of the devil and a helpless human brother. Only then was he free to fulfil the call to love his enemy - after all, lambs do not save wolves. He had acted on his own, and yet, perhaps, for his Anabaptist brothers and sisters as well. I expect that if we could ask Dirk why he turned to save the enemy, we would hear "Not I, but Christ in me". Yet if Dirk was simply obeying what could not be disobeyed, his act has little meaning. In my imagination I can only resolve it thus: as Dirk walked across the ice, he was sustained but not compelled by the hand of God.

    When I search the scriptures to help me understand what Dirk did, I go where I have always gone -to the hard sayings of Jesus and to the cross. I search for other passages as well, ones that speak of extravagant praise. The gospel of Mark records the story of a woman who poured a jar of costly ointment over Jesus' head. The disciples were indignant at this appalling waste, but Jesus rebuked them, saying, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me ... And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." Like this woman, Dirk Willerns has done a beautiful thing for Jesus. Wherever the gospel is preached, it is goad that what he has done should be told in memory of him.

    Joseph Liechty has worked in Ireland for Mennonite Board of Missions since 1980. When this article was written he was lecturing in the history department of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and at the Irish School of Ecumenics. His teaching and writing centre on issues of sectarianism in Irish history and society.

    Notes

    1. The story of Dirk Willems is from a 1660 Anabaptist martyrology compiled by Thieleman J. van Bracht, translated as Martyrs Mirror (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1950), 741-42. A longer version of Joseph Liechty's article on Willems appeared in Mennonite Life 45, no. 3 (1990:18-23).

    AT 07: The Church and "God's Servant" the State, Part 1

    by Nigel Wright
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 7, October 1994

    First in a series that continued with The Powers and God's Providential Rule: Church and State and Respectful and Subversive: Church and State

    If you go to the bible for guidance on how God's people should relate to the state, you find a range of possible strategies - some of which seem to he in tension with others. At the time of Ahab and Jezebel, for instance, Elijah came into conflict with a state in rebellion against God. Elijah was part of a faithful remnant which would not obey a corrupt government and bow the knee to Baal. Yet at the same time Obadiah, also faithful to Yahweh, was a top official in the civil service of the apostate king and queen. Obadiah used his position to protect a hundred prophets of Yahweh. Authors of this biblical story regarded both moral stances as acceptable: Elijah speaking from outside the system and Obadiah acting on the inside.

    This paradoxical response of God's people to corrupt government reflects some of the ambiguity with which people of the Old Testament regarded the state. The early history of Israel tells of God liberating his people from oppression in Egypt, yet liberation was not an end in itself. The people were set free for the service of God in the Promised Land, and were to come under his direct rule. They were to be distinguished from the nations by their covenant relationship with Yahweh. So Israel in this early period was not a state; nor was she without social institutions or occasional charismatic leaders in the form of judges.

    The state as concession to human sin

    From these early experiences came the notion that the state is something God's people should suspect. Yahweh's kingship excluded rather than included human kingship! God understood Israel's later request for a king to be a rejection of himself as king (1 Sam. 8:7), even though he eventually gave Israel a king. Indeed, the period of the monarchy overall must he regarded as a period of judgement, throughout which faults of the system became glaringly obvious. Identification of the people of God with a state was never wholly comfortable, and there are hints of conscious distinction between the two. The spirit and accomplishment of Solomon was a reversal of Sinai. The institutional state, like certain other human conditions such as divorce and slavery, was a concession to human "hardness of heart". The prophets reinforced this, accepting the state as God-given but denying it the right to take the place of God.

    Israel came to a new stage of relationship with the state during exile. It is significant that this period of Israel's history, in which Israel no longer existed as a separate state, was one of great spiritual fertility. Exiles in Babylon had to come to terms with living as a religious minority within a pagan state. Jeremiah told them to "seek the peace and prosperity of the city" in which they were exiled (Jer. 29:7). The book of Daniel is a fascinating analysis of the extreme dangers and unique opportunities of serving an imperial state. God's people were to witness to the living God in the midst of an idolatrous state.

    The exiles were aware of the "beastly" character of empire, and yet chose both to serve and to challenge it in the name of the Lord. They were able to influence the state's policies and to benefit the people of God by their secular career positions. All the same, there was at this stage of Israel's history a deliberate debunking and mockery of Babylon's imperial gods, as evidenced by Isaiah 46 and 47. It is perhaps this period of Israel's history more than any other that has a direct correlation with our own position as those who are "in the world but not of the world".

    Jesus and the apostolic church

    The central fact of New Testament attitudes toward government is that Jesus Christ was crucified by the state. The creedal clause which affirms that Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate" must be a continual cautionary note about too optimistic a view of the state. Once more we find in the New Testament that the saving purposes of God are happening outside and in spite of the power structures of the state. Luke 3:1-3 is a striking example: the word of the Lord bypasses the strong and the mighty, and comes instead to John the Baptist. Once more the idea of a people being formed on the basis of their allegiance to God comes to the fore. God advances his purpose through the faith community which responds to his word.

    We can draw insight from a number of New Testament passages:

    Luke 4:5-8. Jesus faces a strong temptation to fulfil his messianic ambition through worldly power as politician or revolutionary. The devil claims that the authority and splendour of the world's kingdoms "has been given" to him - without mentioning who gave it. Jesus does not contest or confirm the devil's claim.

    John 18:36. Here is a confrontation between two different kinds of kingdom and power. Pilate represents worldly power, Jesus the reign of God. Jesus' kingdom is "not of this world", not because it is reserved to an otherworldly, spiritual sphere, but because it does not use methods of this world (revolution or coercive violence).

    Mark 12:13-17. People often quote this as a proof-text to validate the state: God has his realm, Caesar has his, and both make their legitimate demands. Yet Jesus' reply is not so straightforward. He exposes the degree to which Israel has bought into Roman rule: Pharisees and Herodians possess coins which bear Caesar's idolatrous imprint. Israel has become a nation like the other nations, with "no king but Caesar" (John 19:15).

    Romans 13:1-7. Many Christians regard this as a pivotal passage for debates on the role of the state, and use it to legitimise government. God ordained the state to punish evildoers, and Christians should obey. Yet the context in which Paul set this teaching is that of following the way of love in relation to one's enemies. The Roman state, which persecutes the church, is one of those enemies. Christians, however, should not rebel but should imitate Christ in relation to the state. There is a kind of legitimation of the state here, in the sense that God permits the powers and overrules them. Yet God's highest will for humanity is his own reign; the state is an expression of human inability to bear God's reign.

    Revelation 13. This chapter acts as the counterpoint to Romans 13. The author refers to Rome in its persecution of the saints, and reveals the beastly character of human power systems. In accordance with the nature of apocalyptic literature, the author describes here the potential nature of all human power. All governments have it within them to be idolatrous and to oppose the good; Rome just happened to be the dominant power at that time.

    This brief biblical survey leads me to conclude that we cannot simply regard the state as one more part of God's created order. Rather, we must see the state as a configuration of powers under the conditions of fall and sin. The Bible almost universally sees the state in negative and threatening terms, although particular rulers may be regarded in a warmer light. A biblical theology of the state must be a "minimalist" doctrine, ascribing to the state a necessary but limited role - and only ambiguous legitimation.

    Diverse perspectives in the early church

    What have Christians throughout history made of the relation of church and state in the light of the biblical material? Broad traditions emerged early in church history, and we can associate them with names of prominent early churchmen:

    1) The option of Eusebius

    Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265-c.339) was the church historian who chronicled legalisation of Christianity within the Roman Empire. He acted as political theorist of the new relationship between church and state following the "conversion" of emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan in A.D. 313. Constantine became the champion of Christians, and subsequent emperors systematically persecuted dissenters.

    This "Constantinian shift" appeared to represent the triumph of Christianity. Eusebius' task was to give expression to this imperial theology and to legitimise the rule of the emperor as God's chosen. Eusebius called Constantine the "thirteenth apostle" and spoke of him in almost messianic terms. Christianisation of the empire brought with it the principle of territoriality: the empire was Christian, and all that lay beyond its boundaries was barbarian. To fight for the empire was to fight for Christ. Christ was thus reduced to the status of a tribal god, and propagation of the gospel came to be identified with imperial conquests of empire.

    The Eusebian option continued through the centuries, perhaps most clearly in Byzantine religion. It also appears in the Protestant notion of the godly prince, and in the idea of the divine right of kings familiar in English history. This is full-blooded Constantinianism - the identification of God's cause with particular nations or dynasties. It is the political philosophy which lay behind the Crusades and the imperial extension of so-called Christian nations. Problems with this option, though, are obvious. It reverses Christ's saying that his kingdom is not of this world. We can ask whether Constantine represented the victory of Christianity over the world or of the world over Christianity. Christianity became the religion of the status quo, justifying the power of the powerful, cutting out dissent and nonconformity.

    2) The option of Augustine

    Augustine (354-430) was Bishop of Hippo in North Africa and an outstanding theologian. In A.D. 410 Alaric the Hun sacked Rome, inciting some pagans to say this was judgement of the gods for Rome having embraced Christianity. Augustine sought to refute this argument by saying that what really mattered was the heavenly city. There are two cities, he said, distinguished by radically different loves: love of the world and love of God. Augustine characterised the earthly city in negative terms: the state was a band of robbers, not the noble enterprise Eusebius described. Nevertheless Augustine justified the mixed church of his day, stressing universality at the expense of purity. A negative view of the state did not prevent him from calling upon its aid in confronting the Donatists, an African dissident group that broke relations with the Roman Catholic church and advocated rigorous church discipline. He justified the use of state coercion as a form of church discipline; dissidents were to be compelled to come into the Catholic church. Subsequent theology found it possible to develop Augustine's thought in different directions, and I suggest at least three sub-options of his position:

    2a. The Lutheran view. This is a "two-kingdom" doctrine: the church and state are two different spheres, one characterised by grace and the other by law. Both are necessary in the struggle against evil. The Christian may share in good conscience in either sphere, and operates in each according to appropriate standards. For instance, as a private person vengeance is forbidden. As a magistrate, however, the same person must exact vengeance. Both actions, though different in their spheres, are loving actions. The church persuades with the Word, the state coerces with the sword.

    2b. The Puritan view. Characteristic of Calvin and his followers, this position is unwilling to divide too sharply between the worldly and the churchly spheres. Christ is Lord of all and his authority applies in both realms. The church dues right when it seeks to use powers of the state to further righteousness. The magistrate should act to ensure conformity in matters of religion, and to cut out dissent. This is the historical position of Zwingli s Zurich, Calvin's Geneva, the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, and - perhaps surprisingly - the bulk of English Separatists.

    2c. The Free Church view. This is an outgrowth of Puritanism, which adopts the above basic attitude to the state as a power ordained by God for preservation of order. The Christian may serve in government in good conscience, with one significant exception: the area of conscience and religious conviction is beyond the authority of the state. The state is to confine itself to earthly, worldly matters and is not to meddle in areas of conscience. The classic Free Church view rejects any kind of established religion. The state is rightly a secular entity whose task is to hold open freedoms which enable people to make up their own mind in matters of religion. This is the viewpoint pioneered by Baptists in England and is at the basis of the American Constitution, the first article of which guarantees separation of church and state.

    3) The option of Tertullian

    Tertullian (c. 160-c.215) was a brilliant advocate of Christian faith in North Africa, who late in life joined the charismatic movement called Montanism. Tertullian saw the church as a counterculture, and Christians were to separate themselves. Christ had rejected an earthly kingdom, and Tertullian saw secular powers as not merely alien, but hostile to God. Nonviolence was essential to Christian discipleship, and the church stood as a challenge to politics. The church had withdrawn from politics in order to be a community of love without compromise with power.

    Tertullian represents what is called "sectarianism" in sociological terms. Christians are not to desire or compromise with worldly power. Their value to the world consists in being different from it. Sometimes this approach is described as "withdrawal", but it may he better to call it "detachment". We see this tradition both in monastic movements and in some mediaeval renewal movements, which were attempts at radical faithfulness to the way of Christ. Above all we find Tertullian's way of detachment in the sixteenth-century Anabaptists. A new appreciation of the radical way of Jesus led to a deeper perception of the gulf between the way of Christ and worldly power.

    Making hard choices and embracing paradox

    While the Anabaptists were aware of the fallenness of the state and distanced themselves from it, they also recognised that the state is necessary. A sinful world requires the use of force; rulers are "God's servants". Cyrus, the pagan king, was even described once in Scripture as God's "anointed" (Isaiah 45:1). Anabaptists knew the nonviolent way of Jesus cannot he applied directly to unregenerate society. What we have in the Anabaptists, therefore, is an ambiguous legitimation of the state. The state is necessary because humans rejected God. God permits and providentially orders the state, and we should accept its necessity. That does not mean disciples of Christ settle for second best: they should live as those who have not rejected God, conscious that this sets them apart from the world.

    Most of us will have difficulty accepting the more negative view of the state contained in the work of Tertullian. Nonetheless, I want to develop this basic position in my second article. I believe Tertullian's radical stance is the position closest to the biblical witness (especially to the witness of Jesus), and it gives us a highly realistic basis on which to view the political realm. That said, perhaps we need to recognise that over this issue, as in other areas of Christian belief, it is impossible to state the truth without a degree of paradox. A realistic theology of the state, therefore, may need to incorporate elements of the Augustinian tradition.

    Nigel Wright is a Baptist minister and a tutor in theology at Spurgeon's College in London. He is the author of several books, including The Fair Face of Evil and The Radical Kingdom.

    AT 08: Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement: Diverse Phenomena in Early Decades

    by Stuart Murray
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 8, February 1995

    What would sixteenth-century Anabaptists have made of the "Toronto Blessing" that has impacted many churches in Great Britain in recent months? How did the Radical Reformers respond to such spiritual phenomena'? The charismatic aspect of Anabaptism has not received much attention from historians, but evidence of spiritual phenomena in early Anabaptist groups is substantial. Some welcomed manifestations of the Holy Spirit, while others were wary and attempted to regulate or discourage such expressions. Basic to the Anabaptist view of charismatic gifts, however, was a belief that a transformed life was the true measure and sign of Holy Spirit presence.

    A charismatic view of discipleship

    A sixteenth-century Anabaptist named Leonhard Schiemer wrote that believers receive "a power about which they have to say that things that were once impossible are now possible". Christians lacking such a change, he argued, "are not yet horn again of water and spirit, even the Holy Spirit".1 Schiemer's quote indicates two distinctive emphases in Radical Reformation theology: a preference for the term "horn again" rather than "justification by faith", and a focus on the experience of new life. In contrast to other Reformers, Anabaptists spoke of power to live differently rather than mere freedom from guilt and assurance of forgiveness.

    Anabaptists accepted the notion of "justification by faith", but did not find this term adequate to describe their experience of Christ and his Spirit. Through the death of Christ their sinful past had been forgiven, and now they wanted to live a Christ-centred life in the power of the Spirit. Common Anabaptist terms for salvation were related to the work of the Spirit and the expectation of a changed life. Words that frequently occur are: new birth, conversion, illumination, enlightenment, the new creature, and regeneration2

    Inner light for a life of righteousness

    For Dirk Philips, the Spirit had a vital role as agent of regeneration. The Spirit writes the new convenant on the hearts of believers and enables them to participate in the divine nature. The Spirit is the earthly presence of Jesus, empowering ministers called by God and helping believers interpret the Scripture. Anabaptists equated "baptism in the Spirit" with conversion, but expected more to happen experientially than did the Reformers. The radicals were not satisfied with forensic ideas of grace, typified by the legal terminology of "justification by faith". Rather, they saw grace as "the inner light that directed a life of righteousness ".3

    Hans Hut, the must successful evangelist of first generation Anabaptism, often relied on prophetic dreams and visions, Melchior Huffmann, who introduced Anabaptism to the Netherlands, encouraged the exercise of charismatic gifts and valued the prophetic ministries of both male and female colleagues. Later Dutch leaders, such as Menno Simons and Dirk Phillips, were more wary of reliance on visions. Perhaps this was because "revelations" played a significant part in the Munster catastrophe (1534-35), when an Anabaptist faction gained control of a city government in Germany and inaugurated practices such as polygamy and holy war. But even the later Dutch leaders accepted charismatic gifts to the extent that they were authenticated by Scripture.

    Jacob Hutter (from whom the Hutterite movement takes its name) claimed a miraculous dimension to his ministry as authentication of his calling. The Hutterite Chronicle contains several accounts of miraculous events. Among other Anabaptist examples of charismatic expression were the "prophetic processions" (at Zurich in 1525, at Munster in 1534 and at Amsterdam in 1535).4 The Martyrs' Mirror mentions a martyr named Martin whom authorities led across a bridge to execution in 1531 He prophesied, "this once yet the pious are led over this bridge, but no more hereafter." lust "a short time afterwards such a violent storm and flood came that the bridge was demolished".5 In Germany some Anabaptists, "excited by mass hysteria, experienced healings, glossolalia, contortions and other manifestations of a camp-meeting revival".6

    Pilgram Marpeck rejected the belief that miracles were restricted to the early church, and assured readers miracles still were occurring. He referred to several Anabaptists who had gone joyfully to martyrdom "through the abundant comfort and power of the Holy Spirit". He makes the astonishing statement that "moreover, one also marvels when one sees how the faithful God (who, after all, overflows with goodness) raises from the dead several such brothers and sisters of Christ after they were hanged, drowned or killed in other ways... Even today, they are found alive and we can hear their own testimony." Marpeck said these things occurred "among those who are powerfully moved and driven by the living Word of God and the Spirit of Christ".7

    Bible interpretation guided by the Holy Spirit

    Experience of the Spirit, Anabaptists said, would enable believers to interpret Scripture reliably and faithfully. Martin Luther, in his early years, ascribed a significant rule to the Spirit in reading the text. The Bible "cannot he mastered by study or talent," he said; "you must rely solely on the influx of the Spirit.' Luther later reacted against those within his own camp and elsewhere with whom he disagreed. Increasingly he stressed the letter of Scripture, and said only those who were qualified and accredited should undertake interpretation.

    Anabaptists felt Reformers quenched the Spirit, and said this disqualified them as trustworthy interpreters of Scripture. Pilgram Marpeck complained that "dull teachers have lost the sharpness of the Word, and the sword of the Spirit has been stolen from them and given over to human power. Thus the discipline of the Spirit, the sharpness of the Word, has been discontinued and blasphemed."8 Anabaptists felt that relying on the Spirit would result in more faithful application of the Scripture than that produced by relying on tradition, learning, or human reason. They saw no necessary conflict between Spirit and (written) Word. As a charismatic and biblical movement, they were committed to a "pneumatic exegesis" of Scripture.

    It was not only leaders who emphasised work of the Spirit. Ordinary Anabaptists, under interrogation, frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the Reformers` forensic emphasis and testified to a more spiritual and life-transforming conversion. Heinz Kautz and Hans Peissher criticised the Reformer Philip Melanchthon's formulation of Justification by faith as lacking integrity. In their view, "if there was no evidence of the new man in Christ living a different kind of life from what he had lived before, if there was no moral change, then there could have been no forgiveness of sins."9

    It is clear from the way Anabaptists spoke about their experience of the Spirit that their focus was on ethical change and power for holy living rather than on spiritual phenomena. Anabaptists were distinguished from the Spiritualists, not only by the greater attention they paid to the written Word, but also by their understanding of the Spirit's work as primarily ethical. Their use of terms such as "enlightenment" and "illumination" must he understood in this context.

    In congregational life, too, Anabaptists welcomed activity of the Holy Spirit. An early Swiss Brethren tract complained about the exclusion of the Spirit from meetings in the state churches.10 Entfelder, a Moravian Anabaptist leader, defined a church as "a chosen, saved, purified, sanctified group in whom God dwells, upon whom the Holy Spirit has poured out his gifts, and with whom Christ the Lord shares his offices and his mission".11 There was general agreement from the movement's earliest years that church leadership was charismatic in nature and depended on the Spirit's anointing rather than institutional recognition or academic training.

    What about the "Toronto Blessing"?

    Early Anabaptists certainly were acquainted with phenomena like the "Toronto Blessing". Indeed, there are reports from some sixteenth-century radical groups of practices as bizarre as anything reported in recent months - including adults playing with toys as a sign that they were "becoming as children", nude processions, and bodily contortions.

    Reactions among Anabaptists probably would have been as divided in the sixteenth century as modern responses seem to he. Perhaps the questions their more discerning leaders asked in relation to contemporary phenomena are still helpful: What are the ethical results of spiritual experiences? How is the authority of the written Word maintained alongside activity of the Spirit?

    It was the focus on ethical renewal, including a commitment to nonviolence, costly economic sharing, and truth-telling that prevented the Anabaptists from getting hung up on spiritual phenomena for their own sake. Pilgram Marpeck insisted, "Christ bids us to recognise prophets not by miraculous signs but by their fruits."12 And it was the ability of leaders like Menno Simons and Pilgram Marpeck to hold in creative tension the Word and the Spirit that ensured their churches were built on secure foundations as well as being open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Not all Anabaptist groups managed to maintain this tension: some slipped into spiritualism, many more into a wooden literalism where the work of the Spirit was quenched. Similar dangers continue to confront the church 450 years later.

    Stuart Murray wrote his doctoral thesis an Anabaptist hermeneutics. He teaches evangelism and church planting at Spurgeon's College in South London.

    Notes

    1. Leonhard Schiemer, "A Letter to the Church at Rattenberg" (1527), in Walter Klaassen, editor, Anabaptism in Outline (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1981), 75.

    2. Alan Kreider, "The Servant is not Greater than his Master: Anabaptists mid the Suffering Church" (Mennonite Quarterly Review 55:12).

    3. Robert Friedmann, The Theology of Anabaptism (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1973), 138.

    4. See Walter Klaassen, Anabaptism: Neither Catholic Nor Protestant (Waterloo, Ontario: Conrad Press, 1973), 63.

    5. Martyrs' Mirror (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1950), 440.

    6. George Williams, The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 443.

    7. William Klassen and Walter Klaassen, The Writings of Pilgram Marpeck (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1978), 49-51.

    9. Klassen and Klaassen, Marpeck, 299.

    9. Friedmann, Theology, 163.

    10. Klaassen, Anabaptism in Outline, 127.

    11. Williams, Radical, 267.

    12. Klassen and Klaassen, Marpeck, 5 I.

    AT 08: The Powers and God's Providential Rule: Church and State, Part 2

    by Nigel Wright
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 8, February 1995

    This is the second in a series that began with The Church and "God's Servant" the State and ended with Respectful and Subversive: Church and State, Part 3

    In the first of three articles on church and state, we looked at evidence from both the Bible and the early church. I argued that the state essentially is a concession to human sin, that it is necessary, and that the radical way of Jesus should lead Christians to a certain level of detachment from the ways of worldly power.

    We now have the more difficult task of developing a constructive theology of church and state. Colin Gunton once wrote that the church, through the centuries, has made some wrong choices in its relationship to the state. "The church - though it never lacked voices urging otherwise - has acquiesced in crusade and inquisition which deny the values for which Jesus died: fighting the battles of God in the way his mode of victory forbids... We still live in the aftermath of that historical disaster, as in a land polluted long ago by some nuclear accident."

    A departure from authentic Christianity

    The disaster of which Gunton speaks is the Constantinian reversal in the fortunes of the church, that watershed in the fourth century when emperor Constantine and the Roman imperial government embraced Christianity as a state religion. I take the view that Constantine represents a huge departure from authentic Christianity. From that time on Christianity was pressed into service to provide a religious justification for the exercise of power. By speaking of a "land polluted", Gunton means the church we have received is profoundly defective, polluted by Constantinianism, and stands in need of extensive reform. Gunton goes on to argue that we will not understand correctly the nature of the church unless we first develop a satisfactory theology of the church.

    Anabaptists represent a movement of church renewal and restoration. The idea of the true church, of course, is familiar to all branches of Christianity - and often has been used to excommunicate others. Roman Catholics locate the true church around the bishop who is in communion with Rome; Protestants find it where Word and sacrament are rightly preached and administered; radicals find it where two or three come together in the name of Christ.

    Traditionally radicals have argued that there is a New Testament pattern of the church we are called to imitate. I don't dissent from that, but do wish to argue at a deeper level. The church must be rooted in the trinitarian God; it must be an agent of God's mission to the world, and it must pursue that mission in continuity with and in imitation of the messianic activity of Jesus Christ now continued among us by the Holy Spirit.

    The church is rooted in the being of God because God himself is communion. Through the Son and by the Spirit, believers are drawn into the communion of God's own being and become partakers of the divine nature. God comes to us in the word which is preached, offering participation in his being through faith. The church, therefore, is communion or fellowship. It is made up of those who have been gathered into communion, not of those embraced by an ecclesiastical system or by rituals alone.

    God is dynamic, ever moving outwards to embrace the world. To he gathered into God's being is to become part of this mission. The church is a messianic community, sharing the earthly mission of the Messiah. How Christ - the incarnation of God - went about his mission is how we go about ours: "As the Father sent me, so t send you". Jesus pursued his mission by mercy, compassion, identification with outcasts, preaching, healing, liberating, and nonviolence. He incarnated the Word and gathered a community of friends in order to extend the mission through them. His mission came to fullest expression in the self-sacrifice of the cross. When we imitate Christ, fulfilling his mission in his way, we become the messianic community. Only in this way can the church he the agent of God's redemption. The tragedy of Constantine is that, at this point, the church forsook this vocation for another.

    Redemption through the church, not the state

    Traditional theology has located the state within the "order of preservation" - a temporary expedient which God ordains or allows because of sin; the state is a means of restraining chaos while the world waits to be redeemed. This is a doctrine of a limited state: the state dues not belong to the "order of redemption". It cannot he the means of redemption, which instead is focused in God's activity through the church.

    Jesus was crucified by the state. Crucifixion, in the first century, was the form of execution reserved for political offenders and insurrectionists--and this is how the state perceived Jesus. No faith which has the cross at its heart can take a naive attitude towards political authorities. Just as all human sin is revealed at the cross, so the idolatry of human social and political structures also is revealed. The Christian faith is an eschatological faith: it envisages a future that questions the present. This element of future hope makes the Christian faith profoundly revolutionary because it calls the present order into question in the light of a better order which is to come. The Christian faith is a religion of transcendence: it locates the meaning of the world in a God who both embraces the world and lives apart from it. All human realities are relativised in the light of the transcendent Lord, and ultimate reality is due only to him. In the view of these convictions, I argue six propositions about the state:

    1. The state is a secular entity. By this I mean that it belongs to this world and to this age. To be secular is not the same as being pagan. I use "secular" to mean "without any pretensions to divinity or ultimate importance". The gospel itself is a secularising power, since it unmasks as a lie the idolatrous pretence of created things. Paul said rulers are "God's servants to do you good" - not objects of ultimate devotion as in totalitarian systems. We today are used to the idea of "civil service", but when Paul spoke of the state as a servant it was unheard of - except perhaps in the history of Israel. What Paul is doing is secularising the state, robbing it of its pretensions to divinity and self-importance. He shows the state as the limited and functional earthly entity that it is.

    2. The state is permitted rather than ordained. The best government is direct rule from God, as experienced by Cain when there was a perfect balance of justice and compassion. The best government is what God willed for Israel before they desired to be like the nations and have a king rule over them. God gave king Saul to the people because they were unwilling or unable to accept what God really wanted them to have. Kingship - which intrinsically involved domination and exploitation - was God's permissive ordinance, and it remained a flawed instrument (see 1 Samuel 8:11-22). After Constantine, the church read Romans 13 as legitimising the authority of the government. Yet this was not Paul's original intention (though he is giving the state some kind of legitimation). Rather, he is counselling believers against revolution on the grounds that the powers come under God's providential rule. As in the case of king Saul, however, this is an ambiguous legitimation which questions at the same time that it permits.

    3. Each state is a unique configuration. Any actual state is rooted in the human capacity for organisation, and takes form under the conditions of sin and fall from such potential. States may vary in form and are capable of reconfiguration. Because sub-structures that give rise to the state are created entities, they are capable of redemption and reconciliation. But the particular configurations we call states will cease to exist when the kingdom of God comes in its fulness and we enjoy the direct rule of God.

    4. Despite their God-given role, all systems of human government are flawed. All systems of government, however stable and peaceful in the present, have their origin in violence and the lust for power - and ultimately are maintained by violence. "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them," Jesus said, "... But you are not to he like that. Instead, the greatest among you should he like the youngest, and the one who rules like one who serves" (Luke 22:25-26). At party conference time, the agenda is always masked in moral rhetoric; underneath is the naked struggle for power and dominance. The contrast between the way of the world and the way of Christ becomes clear in Jesus' words, "you are not to he like that". Reinhold Niebuhr, in his book Moral Man and Immoral Society, argued that human societies are always less moral than the people who compose them. There is a multiplication of fallenness when it comes to structures as opposed to persons. But in Christ the powers are to be redeemed, restored to their rightful place, and integrated into the communion of all things with their Creator. Here, then, is the paradox: To stress the createdness of the powers at the expense of their fallenness might lead us to fall prey to them. To stress their fallenness at the expense of their createdness might lead us to negate the good they can do. It is only in maintaining the paradox that we judge with sound judgement.

    5. The limited, temporal role of the state involves the maintenance of ,justice, peace and freedom. The state needs to he reminded of the role assigned to it by God: to reward the good and punish the evil-doer. God orders the state to provide the structure within which humans may live out their lives peacefully, freely and fairly. However, because it is a fallen structure itself, it will only ever deliver a kind of justice, peace, and freedom. Only God can bring about the full reality.

    6. In matters of religion the state is called to be impartial. A referee at a football match is impartial as regards to the sides, but not neutral as regards the rules. The role of the state regarding religion is to provide the framework within which religious faiths might argue and persuade. The duty of the state before God is to maintain religious liberty. Faith in Christ cannot he coerced; it comes though personal response to the gospel. Constantinianism created a hybrid of Christianity and coercive power which denied the freedom of God and the freedom of humanity. Breaking out of the shackles of this inheritance is something we have yet to complete, To argue for state impartiality towards religion is not the same as arguing for indifference. Religious traditions and living faiths play a hugely important rule in any society, shaping lives and fostering personal and civic virtues.

    Nigel Wright is a Baptist minister and a tutor in theology at Spurgeon's College in London. He is the author of several hooks, including The Fair Face of Evil and The Radical Kingdom.

    AT 09: Inviting Others to Know and Follow Jesus: Rethinking Traditional Evangelism

    by Walfred Fahrer
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 9, June 1995

    From the moment of my call to discipleship I have had to grapple with Anabaptist theology and its implications for faith. My childhood roots were in North American Lutheran pietism, and as a young adult I had a dramatic conversion experience which brought me into personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I was baptised as an adult believer encountered charismatic Christianity, and became a convinced Christian pacifist. Four years after baptism my wife and I first worshipped in a small Anabaptist congregation, and there we found our spiritual family. I served as minister in a congregation that grew from forty to two hundred participants, studied at a Mennonite seminary, and eventually moved to England for evangelism and mission work here.

    My sojourn has allowed me reflection on witness and radical discipleship in two different cultures - American and British. It is out of that sojourn that I share preliminary insights about evangelism I have gained thus far:

    1. Evangelism is more a congregational matter and less an individual issue than we evangelicals traditionally have assumed.

    The Christian congregation is to be a community of invitation. Perhaps this is a pastoral issue a much as anything, since it has to do with the ethos or spirit of the congregation. What makes one congregation hesitant to welcome those who are beginning the journey of faith, and another eager to do so? It is the task of leaders to shape the character and ethos of a faith community. They need to create an environment of security that makes it possible to integrate people coming to faith.

    One of the main obstacles to such an ethos is legalism. This can come in different forms, but it always contains at its core a sense that "We've got it right; therefore, anyone who wants to join must learn our way rather than discover with us what it means to follow Jesus faithfully." It is difficult to be both legalistic and evangelistic - unless you want to send all your new believers to some other congregation after you lead them to Christ! Legalism is the clearest indication that a congregation has ceased to be evangelistic in character. Congregational leaders need to guard against such an attitude.

    Closely related to legalism is the matter of becoming isolationist. In other words, do members of the congregation have meaningful relationships with unbelievers? Sometimes new believers need to break off unhealthy relationships with past acquaintances in order to stand in their faith. But when this practice becomes the norm and all members of the church confine close relationships to like-minded Christians, the church loses its ability to share the gospel. Such isolationism needs to be guarded against. Congregations need to plan for mature believers to involve themselves with new Christians in their old friendship networks. New believers have found a life that is meant to be shared! If they don't share their faith within a few months, the potential for positive witness largely is over. Some Christians isolate themselves from unbelievers because they aren't sure their own faith is strong enough to keep them from being shaped by a sinful society. They fear that if God isn't powerful enough to keep them, how could he help someone who is deeply affected by a fallen world? Seeing people come to faith has the effect of strengthening the faith of committed Christians and re-opening them to witness.

    Traditional evangelicalism has tended to assume that evangelism essentially is a one-to-one conversation between a believer and an unbeliever about the matter of faith in Christ. This, however, leaves out the importance of the community of faith. We cannot make a congregation evangelistic just by having evangelistic messages or by inviting evangelists to hold special meetings. Nor is it enough to hold evangelism training courses. The real issue for evangelism is the character of a congregation. Many people need to experience acceptance, love and compassion - and to see the life of Jesus in others - before they are ready to hear about faith.

    2. We need to re-evaluate the traditional evangelical gospel presentation.

    After attending a number of evangelism training courses, I can give you the classic elements of an evangelical gospel presentation: I ) God is holy, 2) people are sinful, 3) a gulf separates people from God, 4) the cross of Jesus is a bridge that brings God and people together, 5) believing in Jesus is the ticket to heaven.

    The primary Anabaptist critique of such a message is that its goal is heaven. The goal of evangelism in Anabaptist thought is discipleship - following Christ in life - with the assurance that believers will enjoy eternal fellowship with God. The early Anabaptist mystic Hans Denck wrote a sentence that modern Anabaptists often quote, "no one can know Christ truly unless they follow him in life." To an Anabaptist Christian, the evangelical presentation leaves out the critical step of discipleship and thereby distorts the message. Jesus taught his disciples to pray that the kingdom of God would come to earth, not that the church would be taken up to heaven from earth.

    It is possible, of course, for people to be committed to certain kingdom values and never know Christ is a personal way. Yet an ethical commitment, such as nonviolence, is no substitute for a spiritual encounter with Christ. Mennonites sometimes have experienced just such an outcome at times in our history. We have forgotten the second half of Hans Denck's sentence...... and no one can truly follow [Christ] unless they first have known him."

    We need a holistic gospel message, one which includes both knowing and following. As Anabaptist Christians we need to think through that challenge and produce a clear, simple summary of the gospel that can be shared with unbelievers, and that contains the full sense of what we believe. Until Anabaptists do this, it is appropriate for a critic to say regarding traditional evangelism, "Although it is imperfect, I like what I am doing better than what you are not doing."

    3. Our understanding of sin affects our approach to evangelism.

    An additional critique of the traditional gospel message is its understanding of sin. The traditional evangelical explanation of the gospel understands sin as volitional (related to one's will or intentions). Sin is that which I have done (or not done) that is contrary to the will of God. The evangelical response is that an individual should feel guilty about such sin and repent (say "sorry" to God).

    Such an individualised understanding of sin, however, is only one side of the coin. What we are learning from family systems psychology, for example, is that sin is progressive and intergenerational in its effects. Children of a violent or alcoholic father will be shaped by the sin committed against them. The children may grow up to repeat the same destructive pattern. Their adult behaviour is their own responsibility, but without healing for the sin that set them up, lasting change is exceptionally difficult.

    How can I feel guilty for what was done to me, and how can I say "sorry" to God for it? We create emotionally damaging distortions if we try to force this kind of sin into the mould of repentance. We also do violence to the victim if we only focus on their attitudes toward the perpetrator of the sin. Which is more intolerable to God - that a twelve-year-old girl was violated by her father, or that, as an adult, she hates him for it? We evangelicals have tended to focus on her hatred and say "you need to repent."

    Anabaptists knew from their history the devastating effects of the sins of others. They were victims of persecution for their faith - not from pagans, but from those who called themselves Christian. Their descendants know intuitively that the church's traditional message usually doesn't speak to the victim. 1n response, many modern Anabaptists have opted out of evangelism and have given themselves instead to voluntary service. Yet Jesus' life, death and resurrection have much to say to those who have been sinned against. Jesus was an innocent victim of the sins of others. He bore our grief and carried our sorrows (not just our guilt). He was despised and rejected.

    We must include in our gospel presentation not just the truth of sins forgiven, but something of the power of God to set free those who are trapped in the pain and suffering of sin of which they are victims. It is not enough to call people to confession of faith and to assure them of forgiveness. We may need to take a page or two out of the "twelve step" groups (such as Alcoholics Anonymous) and examine on that basis the level of support and acceptance we offer within the faith community. For when we involve ourselves in a gospel of healing, we will rediscover a need for the faith community.

    4. Our understanding of baptism influences our evangelistic efforts.

    Becoming a Christian is a matter of responding to the love of God in Christ. How we respond to God has to do with the nature of love itself. There was nothing I could do to earn my wife's love for me. If I were able to make her indebted to me and she had to repay me by showing affection, it would destroy the very character of love. Love must be freely given or it is destroyed. But if I simply accepted my wife's love as a fact, and did not change my behaviour towards her, there would be no relationship. My response to her love and commitment was my love and commitment.

    It is a distortion of the gospel to invite people to know Christ without cost, but inviting people to a cause without knowing Christ is equally incomplete. If there is a greater danger in our day, it is that much of contemporary evangelical Christianity focuses on a cheap passage to eternity with God. The doctrine of those of us who were brought up in Reformed Christianity is "salvation is a gift". Yet there is a major difference between teaching that justification cannot be earned and implying thereby that discipleship is not required.

    Evangelical Christianity puts emphasis on the conversion experience: "Have you been born again?" Baptism becomes the public symbol of that experience, and we practise baptism because Jesus commanded us to. But such a view of baptism essentially is backward-looking, pointing back to the moment of accepting Christ. Anabaptist Christianity, in contrast, views baptism as a pledge to follow Christ in life. Anabaptist Christians have a tradition of "baptismal vows", in which baptism is forward-looking, expecting a walk of discipleship in the present and future. It is not the experience which sustains the commitment; it is the commitment which sustains the relationship.

    5. Cross-pollination may release us to a Joyful experience of evangelism.

    Can we once again bring together the two streams of knowing Jesus and following him in life? Can we invite people to all fe-giving experience and a life­long commitment? To invite others to an assurance that them sins are forgiven outside of the context of a desire to follow Christ as Lord, is to wrench the jewel of conversion from its true setting. To offer assurance of heaven without the need to be a disciple and work for the kingdom on this earth is to distort the nature of divine citizenship that Jesus offers. To call people to follow Christ without leading them to know his grace and forgiving love is to ask people to start a journey they can never complete. And to call people into solidarity with the kingdom of God without introducing them to the healing love of its king is to reduce divine fellowship to an ethical standard. The time has come to cross­pollinate, and to bring together the insights of Anabaptism and the evangelistic fire of evangelicals.

    Walfred Fahrer is pastoral elder of the Cholmelev Evangelical Church in North London. He is the author of a book on Anabaptist ecclesiology entitled Building on the Rock (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1995).

    AT 09: Respectful and Subversive: Church and State, Part 3

    by Nigel Wright
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 9, June 1995

    This is the third in a series that began with The Church and "God's Servant" the State and continued with The Powers and God's Providential Rule: Church and State

    What is the proper relationship between church and state? In two previous articles1 we looked at the biblical understanding of the state as a concession to human sin. We noted that governments are permitted by God to function, but invariably are flawed and have a limited role in God's design. How then are people of God's kingdom to relate to earthly powers?

    Even the language of "church and state" betrays assumptions that we need to question about the "holy tandem" that long has existed between these two institutions. In the age of Christendom2 there were fundamentally only two institutions in society: the church and the ruler. This itself was an advance on the days when there had been only one institution - the ruler who also was regarded as a god or priest. From the beginning Christianity has insisted that there be a dialogue between church and ruler, and this has been a stimulus towards a more open society. But we fool ourselves if we think that church and state are the only social realities with which we have to do. Church and state are two among many actors that make up modern society. One problem of the modern church is that it is a minority which still sometimes acts as though it were a majority. To understand the role of church within society I suggest the following:

    1. We need to recover the distinction between the church and the world. I say "recover" because the church of Christendom assumed all people in a given territory were Christians, and wished to obscure the distinction between church and world. The church tried to co-opt the world, leveling out the demands of the faith so that Christianity became accessible to all regardless of whether or not they believed. Radical expectations of the gospel were siphoned off and kept alive in monasteries by those who had a special vocation. Yet Christian faith properly understood looks for a people to be formed upon earth who are not shaped by the world but by a coming reality which already is present: the reign of God incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth. The people of God walk to the beat of a different drum. The church which truly follows Jesus will find itself being, whether it wants to or not, a revolutionary and subversive presence.

    2. The first duty of the church is to concern itself with the God revealed in Jesus the Messiah. We do not change the world by trying to change the world! The danger is that the church will allow the world to set the agenda for us, to spell out the terms in which we may be significant. Our task, instead, is to seek first God's kingdom. Humans always have a tendency towards idolatry and self-aggrandisement. The church performs a profoundly important political service when it affirms the demand of God to relate all things to him.

    3. The church should recognise that the cause of Christ will never be advanced by means of worldly power. This was the error of emperor Constantine in the fourth century, and it stands in direct contrast to the way of cross and resurrection embraced by Jesus. Power is attractive, and in each generation we need to face and resist its temptations anew. We are tempted to seek worldly power in order to do godly things. Yet those who seek to bend earthly powers to their will eventually find themselves being bent. In this sense Christians are "anarchists"; we are suspicious of power and do not believe God's purposes are achieved by entering into the domination system and using it for supposedly good ends. In keeping with the mission of Jesus, the church is to remain detached from partisan power struggles, and to concern itself with truth rather than propaganda.

    4. The church, as the church, should reject any form of alignment with political and governmental authorities. This is traditionally known as the "separation of church and state", and is a fundamental free church axiom. Its rationale lies in the fact that because the powers are fallen, any form of alignment of the church with them is bound to be corrupting. The powers of state inevitably seek to use religion for narrow political ends, to legitimate their own status or policies. Equally the church is tempted to pursue its ends by the illegitimate means of power, privilege and coercion. This is an unholy alliance and a wrong understanding of mission. In its own way it is a form of sectarianism, since it identifies the church with national, localised entities. The gospel, in contrast, calls into being a new humanity which transcends all earthly loyalties. Because it has faith in the crucified One and looks for the coming kingdom of God to replace the kingdoms of this world, Christianity makes an inherently unstable state religion. It is constantly calling the powers that be into question, fostering revolution in a way which does the opposite of what state religions are supposed to do.

    5. Separation of church and state does not imply the separation of church from society. Christians follow the example of our Lord when we choose to engage society and live in it. We confess the lordship of Christ over all things. We are concerned to witness to the meaning of Christ for the public square and to see public affairs shaped, as much as possible, by Christian perspectives. Yet Christian influence upon the state must seek to ensure that the state remain properly secular (i.e., avoiding idolatry) and impartial in matters of religious confession (while respecting and safeguarding the place of religious faith among citizens). Christians will call the state to be committed to justice, peace and freedom. However, the state is a human enterprise not built upon faith in God. The state is an accommodation by God to human unbelief. 1n the political realm even Christians will be bound to argue for solutions and remedies which operate with what is humanly possible for a largely unbelieving society. Although shaped by their faith, Christian politicians will not necessarily have distinctively "Christian" policies to offer. There is no more a precise Christian politics than there is a Christian car maintenance. But there are Christian values and concerns which shape the way people are to relate to each other.

    6. Despite its detached stance, the church seeks improvement in the social order. The church recognises the fallenness and limitations of all political powers. In this way we guard against false propaganda, delusion and false hope. We refuse to believe that final hope for humanity is found within any. human ideology or political system. Rather, hope is found in Christ. Our basic position of detachment, however, frees us to distinguish between bad and worse, between the less good and the better. These relative judgments are not to be despised. The fact that the powers are rooted in created reality and will be redeemed allows the possibility of improvement in the social order. It is the duty of all Christians to seek such improvement While the church as the church maintains a critical distance from government, this does not exclude the participation of Christian individuals in the legitimate spheres of government.

    7. The church can be a major source of inspiration, values and innovation in the humanising process. Because we draw upon divine resources of faith, hope and love, Christians incarnate something new in the world. The justice, peace and freedom which are the responsibility of the state receive definition, in part, through the witness of the church. From within its own life the church is able to offer ways of relating in social organisms which may be translated to the wider community. Historically it is possible to point to the growth of free and democratic institutions in the wake of free church movements. Christians must pay attention to the fostering of their own messianic communities - not only to give glory to God, but also for the sake of their innovative potential for all humanity.

    8. The political sphere is important, but no more important than any other sphere of life. The paradoxical view of the state we have developed takes seriously political affairs even while being fully aware of the fallen nature of the powers. While affirming that Christians may have a vocation in politics, we wish to resist the notion that human life can be defined by politics or that the political sphere is more significant than any of the other spheres of human life. Much political endeavour proves incapable of achieving the desired end. Christians may have a greater and longer term impact for good in many

    other vocations. We resist the notion, therefore, that it is of particular importance for Christians to enter political life. We believe the purposes of God's kingdom may often be advanced more effectively in other ways.

    9. In any sphere of life it is our duty to obey God when con-fronted with demands at variance with faithful discipleship. Within a fallen world system in which God is ignored, it is inevitable that certain actions are deemed necessary for preservation of the system. Christians may come under pressure to lie, conceal, misrepresent, or even to kill. Living in the world means that no Christian can avoid relative judgments or ambiguity. We live in the assurance of forgiveness and justification by. faith. However, because we live by faith in the God of resurrection and infinite possibility, no Christian is bound by the false logic of fallen systems. We need to have courage to trust God. This sometimes will lead to conscientious objection through which the Christian exercises his or her witness.

    10. It is the duty of Christians to work for the reduction of all forms of violence and coercion. Christians are followers of a Messiah who rejected the use of violence in pursuit of his cause, and chose the way of the cross rather than return evil for evil. The command "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21) must be taken as foundational to the ministry of Jesus and of all Christians. This creates a considerable tension between the Christian and a world in which violence is regarded as necessary and even on occasion praiseworthy. Utopia will elude us, but it is realistic to work of the minimising of all violence wherever possible, including the use of force by governments.

    Until this summer Nigel Wright was a tutor in theology at Spurgeon's College in London. In his recent doctoral thesis he compared and contrasted the theologies of Jurgen Moltmann and John Howard Yoder. He recently moved to Manchester to be senior pastor at Altrincham Baptist Church.

    Notes

    1. See Anabaptism Today 6 (October 1994:9-14) and 7 (February 1995:16-20).

    2. By "Christendom" I mean the era of European history beginning with Constantine in the fourth century, during which time church and state worked closely together to make all subjects in a given territory "Christian". Vestiges of Christendom still shape European society today.

    AT 09: Through the Eye of a Needle: Faith and Discipleship

    by Chris Marshall
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 9, June 1995

    The “discipling” of new believers, leading them into a deeper personal relationship with Christ, has long been a practice within the Christian church. But the perception that discipleship is something that touches relationships, reconciliation, ethics and justice has not been so obvious. Christians often have tended to view discipleship more as an individual, spiritual affair - a matter of personal piety rather than corporate lifestyle or social commitment.

    Discipleship central to the gospel narratives

    Some form of the word "disciple" occurs hundreds of times in the gospel narratives. Alongside their intention to introduce Jesus and to clarify his significance, all the gospel writers were deeply concerned to communicate the meaning and implications of discipleship.

    Jesus called all people to repentance and faith in light of the dawning of God's kingdom (Mark 1:14-15). He sought positive response to his message and a personal allegiance to himself as bearer of that message from all his hearers. But within this general summons, Jesus called certain individuals to a more exacting commitment of discipleship that involved leaving family and home to follow Jesus physically on his journeys around the countryside proclaiming the kingdom.

    This means that Jesus had two main kinds of supporters: local sympathisers, who embraced his message but did not join him on his itinerant ministry, and disciples or followers, who accompanied him on his travels and who were personally authorised to minister on his behalf. The mutual sharing and fellowship of this group of men and women compensated for the loss they suffered as ones who left all to follow Jesus (Mark 10:28-30).

    The inner circle of this group comprised twelve disciples or apostles specially appointed by Jesus in Mark 3:13-14. "The Twelve" were distinguished from the wider body by a combination of greater personal intimacy with Jesus ("to be with him") and a special commissioning ("to be sent out") to preach, exorcise and heal as Jesus' authorised representatives. They also had a symbolic role, constituting a backward reference to Old Testament Israel and a forward reference to the new messianic community. Despite their special role, however, the Twelve possessed no special dignity or authority within the larger body of disciples. Whenever they tried to arrogate such to themselves, conflict developed and Jesus gave corrective teaching (see, for example, Mark 9:33-41; 10:35-45).

    Discipleship, then, is only one form of positive response to Jesus described in the gospels. Not all who repented and believed became disciples; most did not. Yet the gospel writers concentrate most attention on the experience of the disciples because the disciples provide the clearest illustration of what it means to encounter the kingdom of God. They exemplify most powerfully how a commitment to the way of Jesus touches relationships, reconciliation, ethics and justice.

    Jesus' initiative in calling disciples

    Discipleship always began with Jesus taking the initiative, calling those whom he wanted and laying down the conditions he required them to meet. Jesus delighted in choosing individuals who, by contemporary standards, were least qualified for the job. He chose fishermen, not learned experts in religious affairs. He chose small-town Galileans, not sophisticated urbanites from Jerusalem. He called tax-collectors, individuals regarded as "unclean" outcasts in Jewish society because of their collaboration with Rome in exploiting God's people. At the same time he chose violent, dangerous Zealots, fanatical nationalists who would as soon assassinate Romans (and tax-collectors!) as handle their coinage.

    Greek philosophers and Jewish rabbis also had disciples. But in their case a disciple would approach the master and ask to join his school, and would typically be an able, studious individual, well equipped for higher learning. Not so with Jesus. He nominated his own disciples and paid little regard to the "natural equipment". Why? Because Christian discipleship is pre-eminently a gift, an unearned privilege, a relationship conferred by grace. The ability to succeed in discipleship is received, not achieved. "Apart from me", Jesus tells his disciples in John I5:5, "you can do nothing."

    Yet Jesus did not dragoon people into the cause of the kingdom. His call, though authoritative, was not irresistible. It could be refused (cf. Mark 10:17-22) - and for good reason! Accepting Jesus' call involved some very difficult choices. It meant accepting the conditions of discipleship he laid down, and those conditions were not easy.

    In Mark 1:15 Jesus demands a twofold response to his proclamation of the kingdom of God: repentance and faith. The fishermen respond to Jesus' call to discipleship in a twofold way: they leave all and follow Jesus. Becoming a disciple involved a fundamental act of repentance, expressed in their "leaving", and a radical commitment of faith, expressed in their "following".

    In the biblical tradition, metanoia or "repentance" is not simply a change of mind or opinion, as it was in secular Greek. Nor is it primarily a feeling of remorse or sorrow for wrongdoing, as in popular usage today. Biblical repentance entails the redirection of one's entire manner of life. The term requires a turning away from an existing way of life, with all its values, ambitions, priorities and allegiances, and turning towards a new way of life, with a new set of values, ambitions, priorities and allegiances.

    A decisive break with the social order

    For the four fishermen in Mark 1:16-20, conversion to discipleship required them to make a decisive break with the existing social order in three main areas. First, they abandoned their possessions and means of livelihood: they left their boats and nets. Discipleship had economic implications. Second, they relinquished their positions of authority and control; they left behind their hired servants. Discipleship had implications for existing patterns of social status and power. Third, and most demanding of all, these fishermen detached themselves from family ties and traditions, the primary source of identity and stability for first-century Palestinians. Discipleship had costly ramifications for family life and kinship responsibilities.

    Why did Jesus require such a radical conversion of his followers, such an emphatic break with life as usual? One common explanation is that Jesus expected the end of the world to be imminent. Time was short; extreme measures where needed for extreme times. As it turned out, however, Jesus was wrong about the closeness of the End and, by implication, the ethical radicalism he demanded of his followers can no longer be sustained today. According to this perspective, the response of the fishermen cannot be regarded as a viable pattern for Christian disciples today - which is most convenient!

    Indeed, Jesus' mission was characterised by a sense of eschatological urgency, which in part accounts for the rigorous nature of discipleship as depicted in the gospels. But it was not so much the temporal imminence as the totalitarian character of the impinging kingdom that explains Jesus' radicalism. I suggest that Jesus placed such severe demands upon his followers because he wanted his company of travelling disciples to serve as a symbolic demonstration that God's kingdom lays claim to the whole of one's life and requires the radical transformation of everything one is and does.

    Jesus' disciples had to make a categorical break with life as usual because life in God's kingdom, now breaking into the present, required a fundamental recalibration of their social, political and economic values and commitments. That is why, later in Mark's gospel, Jesus gives ethical teaching that corresponds directly to, and redefines the values of, the three spheres of existence left behind by the fishermen in order to follow Jesus:

    • They had to make a break with their possessions and livelihood because within the new order of God's kingdom, a wholly new attitude toward wealth prevails: "Now hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23).

    • They needed to leave behind their hired servants because within the kingdom community there is to be a new attitude to social power, prestige and authority: ". . . whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all" (Mark 10:43, 44).

    • The break with family was necessary to show that in the messianic community an entirely new concept and experience of family comes into being: "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother" (Mark 3:35).

    In short, those entering discipleship had to leave behind the world as they knew it in order to enter a new world, with a disturbingly new vision of life. The discipleship community was to be a living, breathing demonstration that God was making a new way of life possible. It was to serve as a visible incarnation of God's kingdom on earth, a colony of the new age planted in the midst of the old.

    Discipleship had to be radical. Otherwise where would have been a yawning credibility gap at the heart of Jesus' message. How could Jesus have gone about announcing the in-breaking of God's cosmic reign on earth - the climactic fulfilment of all human history - while allowing his followers to go about their normal lives as though nothing had changed?

    And yet, Jesus did not expect the same expression of commitment from everyone who embraced his message. Localised sympathisers did not leave their jobs, home and families; they remained a functioning part of the existing social order. Nevertheless, the transforming agenda of the kingdom, most starkly visible in the company of disciples, was also apparent in the lives of local supporters. They too began to redistribute their wealth (Luke 12:13-21; 19:1-10); they used their homes and possessions to serve the goals of the kingdom (Mark 11:1-17; 12:41-44; 14:3-9; Luke 8:1-3; 14:12-14; 22:7-13); they cared for the poor and the sick, the prisoners and the oppressed (Mark 9:38-41; Matthew 25:31-46; Luke 10:25-37).

    The almost suicidal renunciation of all means of human security placed the fishermen in a situation of radical dependency, even powerlessness. In order to follow Jesus they had divested themselves of all that gave them control or power over their own and others' lives. It was an unwillingness to live at such extreme risk and vulnerability that disqualified the rich man, despite his obvious piety, from following Jesus (Mark 10:17-22).

    Conversion to a risky, dependent faith

    Where does this all leave us today? From the perspective of the gospel narratives, "radical discipleship" is a tautology. There is no discipleship other than radical discipleship. It is radical because it requires a thorough-going conversion of one's personal, social and political values and commitments. It requires a risky, dependent faith that looks wholly and solely to Jesus for identity, provision and protection. The most strenuous commands of Jesus, such as those requiring redistribution of wealth or a nonviolent response to aggression, presuppose such conversion and faith.

    It is true that the economic dispossession and itinerant lifestyle of those first disciples was a response specific to, and appropriate for, the unique circumstances of Jesus' historical ministry. Subsequent generations of believers are not required to imitate in detail the economic divestment and subordination of family ties required of the earliest disciples. (There is little evidence of such imitation by Christians in other New Testament documents though see 1 Cor. 13:3). Their lifestyle was not a blueprint to be replicated but a model to learn from. As the foundation of the messianic community, they are a paradigm for all Christians, not in the sense that we copy them in specifics but that, like them, we allow the reality of God's kingdom to challenge and transform every dimension of our lives so that we also become living proof that God has made a new corporate way of life possible.

    The above essay is a shortened version of an article by the same title that appeared in Faith and Freedom (December 1994: 8-12). Used by permission.

    Chris Marshall is Head of the Department of New Testament Studies at the Bible College of New Zealand in Auckland He is author of Faith as a Theme in Mark's Narrative (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Kingdom Come: The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (Auckland: Impetus Publications. 1993)

    AT 10: For Such a Time as This: Beyond revival to transformation

    by Noel Moules
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 10, October 1995

    What a wonderful time to be a Christian! What a privilege to be standing at this kairos moment! What a challenge to be able to explore fresh ways of expressing what it means to be disciples of Jesus!

    Does all this excite you? Or do you feel tired, jaded, frustrated, disorientated and angry about faith in general and church in particular? I meet many Christians today who do. We stand at the threshold of the third millennium, within an arid secular culture. While spiritual hunger is driving some people to pursue a genuine spiritual quest, the vision of the majority in our culture is determined by video and their values by virtual reality. Our culture is all too eager to write us off as just another "evangelical cult". Around the world the church is growing faster than at any time in history, but in Great Britain we don't see much of the action! Unfulfilled promises about the spiritual impact of the church on society, made by preachers in recent decades, have left many Christians here deeply disenchanted. There has developed a popular Christian appetite for happening in preference to being. People are looking for the "next thing" - whatever that may be - rather than rejoicing in the freedom of rugged discipleship.

    Our challenge is to discover what it means to be an Anabaptist Christian today. We embark on this quest because, whatever our feelings and circumstances, Jesus is the one that inspires us. He is the "dawn" (Luke 1:78) and the "morning star" (Revelation 22:16); only he has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). We are also inspired by the lives and insights of our sisters and brothers, the Anabaptists. In the turbulent days of the sixteenth century, with society and church set against them, they demonstrated the creative power of following Jesus with the anointing of the Spirit. They left an indelible mark upon their own generation and those that followed. The challenge is for us to do the same.

    I have never liked the use of the popular Christian phrases such as "revival", "renewal", "recovery" or "restoration". These simply are not biblical or New Covenant terms in the way most Christians use them. They each carry an inherent sense of a response to failure, and are backward-looking. The language of the New Testament looks forward and speaks about "eternal life", "outpouring", "fruitfulness", and "transfiguration". In Jesus' day there were many renewal movements, but his work was different. I believe that Anabaptism has to do with the demonstration of truth rather than renewal. I want to stand tall, girded in truth, in the "waters of the river of life" (Revelation 22:1) and expect them to get deeper Ezekiel 47:1-5).

    Radical rootedness

    I have always been gripped by the words "roots", "rootedness" and "radical" (from the Latin word for roots, radix). Here is a biblical principle that is key for the way ahead. The roots that we are to explore together can be nothing less than the roots of the Tree of Life. Roots are the life of the tree, drawing nourishment into the trunk and the branches; they provide strength and security to the whole. They are the hidden inner structure whose existence is revealed and demonstrated in the branches and the fruit. Those who feed upon the Tree of Life become like it in character, for "the seed is in the fruit" (Genesis 1:12). This is beautifully expressed by Jeremiah (17:7-8):

    Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by the water, sending out its shoots by the stream. It shall not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

    What then are the roots to the Tree of Life which are to characterise our lives both as individuals and communities of faith? Below are what I see as central and essential for those who are looking for Anabaptist discipleship distinctives:

    1. Jesus

    The word "root" is one of many titles given to Jesus in the New Testament (Revelation 5:5; 22:16). To be Christian is to be Christocentric - not only in name, but also in practice. We live in a "Christian" culture which gives lip-service to the centrality of Jesus. But in reality he has been reduced to a theological factor with specific reference to the atonement: that he died for our sins. Too few Christians believe that the incarnation is a pattern for discipleship, that Jesus showed us how to live. The example of Jesus' life is dismissed on the grounds that he was God, and so irrelevant because his way of living is unattainable. A primary task in bringing an Anabaptist perspective to our churches is to see people becoming disciples of Jesus in practical lifestyle terms, being obedient to his words and modelling their behaviour on his actions. This is the foundational element, in which and from which all other Anabaptist principles find their source. The task of bringing people to this point of understanding may appear straightforward, but it meets a great deal of resistance. Discipleship to Jesus begins by each of us individually making the commitment to "follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21).

    2. Spirit

    The Spirit is the sap that flows through the whole root system of the Tree of Life. The Spirit is inseparably linked with Jesus' call to a practical discipleship, and is that which makes such a response actually possible. Because evangelical charismatic Christianity has not been Christocentric, it has emphasised experience rather than discipleship. This has led to the pursuit of the latest phenomenon rather than the power of a consistently godly lifestyle. Biblical themes of spirituality and sanctification are too often neglected in the regular teaching of the church; holiness is usually reduced to legalism. The possibility of substantial sanctification is largely dismissed, with the resulting expectation that Christians will inevitably sin. But the New Testament appears to put no limits upon the possible work of the Spirit in the life of the believer. The person of the Spirit is a constant reminder to us that in our exploration of radical discipleship "the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power" (1 Corinthians 4:20). The presence and anointing of the Spirit must be tangibly demonstrated in the actions of our lives.

    3. Shalom

    Here is the all-embracing vision, a declaration of cosmic wholeness, integration and peace. Shalom (the Hebrew word for all-encompassing peace) sets the scene for our understanding of God's eternal purpose for all things, a time when everything fits and moves together in perfect creative harmony in the power of the Spirit. Cosmic wholeness in the new heaven and earth is the only restoration the New Testament understands. This vision and reality is so clear that radical disciples of Jesus must by definition be "shalom activists", working for peace. God's peace is not on our agenda, it is our agenda. The gospel is nothing less than the proclamation of peace to the whole creation (cf. Mark 16:15; Ephesians 2:17). The shalom mandate touches everything from personal integrity to global ecology and eschatology. At every point it works to put right broken or unjust relationships.

    Shalom focuses on Jesus' call to nonviolence, nonretaliation and strong gentleness. Peaceableness is at the very heart of the gospel, but rarely on the agenda of the local church. Even people committed to a peace agenda often tend to think of it primarily in terms of war in the international sphere. But we live in a society in which there is violence at every level, expressed in a multitude of ways. It is this localised violence that the community of shalom must also creatively tackle.

    4. Justice

    Inseparably linked with shalom is the issue of justice, or putting things right. The pulsating heart and motivation of justice is found in righteousness, love, mercy and compassion. Justice stands against evil and corruption with invincible tenacity while nurturing the vulnerable and the damaged with deep tenderness.

    Both local and global, justice-seeking must be the work of every disciple of Jesus. Right economics are at the heart of true holiness. Two-thirds world debt and the unfair distribution of resources must be our concern, as must be the plight of street children in the cities around the world as well as the homeless across Britain today. Justice is concerned with prisoners of conscience, with prison reform (and perhaps abolition!) and the overthrow of the death penalty. Justice means peacemaking at the heart of violence and mediation that makes enemies friends.

    Religious toleration was an important theme to the original Anabaptists, and I believe it is a justice issue today. We have the privilege to live in a multi-faith yet secular society, and both facts are a source of anxiety to many Christians. Some view Islam as the new enemy and Hinduism as an alien pollutant. As witnesses to justice and truth, we must make sure that those of other faiths have freedom of worship and freedom from prejudice. True justice is a light that will enlighten through the power of the Spirit. We don't compromise on our beliefs, but are secure amid other faiths.

    5. Truth

    We live in a church culture that stresses creed rather than character. Biblically, the essential question is not, "what is truth?" but "who is truth?" The answer, of course, is God revealed in Jesus. It is essential to express what we believe in words. Yet to embrace truth is to become Christlike in character, not simply to give verbal assent to a doctrinal statement. So often truth is seen as a set of intellectual propositions rather than a life-changing encounter with the risen Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

    "What is the gospel?" is one of the most important questions to ask in these days of church growth and church planting. The gospel is not simply a call to spiritual transaction, but to a total conversion and radical discipleship. The question of Christian initiation is one of the biggest challenges to church today; it involves the message preached and the response made. What is essential is to bring together preaching the gospel, embracing baptism and receiving the Spirit as a single focus. Does our proclamation of the gospel as a call to discipleship see people make a complete break with the past? Do believers embrace new values, and have a dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus through the power of the Spirit?

    "How do we interpret scripture?" is the question that lies behind almost every difference between Christians. The early Anabaptists had a Christocentric approach, and recognised both unity and discontinuity between the Testaments. Anabaptists wanted the community to interpret Scripture together, and tested the quality of interpretation by the quality of life it produced. All this will help us capture the heart of Bible interpretation - along with the more technical tools of modern scholarship.

    6. Freedom

    "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). Freedom is something few Christians really cope with, even though it is the hallmark of truth. The emphasis of many churches is almost exclusively on freedom from (sin, death, fear, guilt); but Jesus also promises freedom to. Most Christian teaching on freedom is cloaked legalism, whereas Jesus calls us to messianic anarchy. To follow Jesus is an invitation to explore and experiment with a freedom that is characterised by truth and shaped by discipline. This is the wonderful, dangerous freedom characterised by self-control, strong gentleness, sensitive love and deep joy.

    The heart of freedom is grace, the extravagant goodness of God. It is an environment of knowing God's forgiveness and being wrapped in his love. It is the place for dealing with guilt, disillusion, anger, doubt and hurt. It is an ethos that encourages questioning and doubt as a means of working though to mature faith and security. We must all work energetically to see this liberating grace become the air that the church breathes and the ethos it expresses.

    7. Wisdom

    This is the ability to apply truth practically to everyday life in a way that harmonises with the kingdom of God. It is the self-expression of mature godly freedom. In a culture that is saturated with information, there is a crying need for wisdom. In a church that has both knowledge and experience, but scant ability at application, wisdom is the missing but essential ingredient. Biblically, wisdom is something you seek (Ecclesiastes 1:13), and you "become" wise. It is a gift of the Spirit, and like shalom it is something that radical disciples pursue. Wisdom reminds us that church is to be a learning environment. It is the place where we bring our questions and experiences and share them together.

    Wisdom is the quality expected of a leader, reflecting experience and maturity. Instead of wisdom, today there is a great deal of insecurity in the church. This often expresses itself in narrow thinking, top-down autocratic styles, and a fear of opening the congregation up to new ways of thinking. The lack of wisdom is evident in the failure to have a true cultural and historical perspective on the spiritual phenomena currently being seen.

    8. Community

    Somebody observed that "Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God and what appeared was the church". Yet the church is the God-ordained means for God's people to operate in the world. For those who are struggling with hurts and anger towards the church, this may be galling. For those who are isolated or hanging on to local church by their fingertips, this will be frustrating. The fact that most of us who want to see an Anabaptist vision grip the church are thinly scattered around the country makes the difficult task of community-building even harder. Yet church community is the environment in which roots of the Tree of Life are to be planted and fruits of the Tree are to be seen.

    Local church is vital, but networking among churches is essential and an important point of nurture for both the individual and the whole church. Local church is an important starting point for those who are isolated or hurting. We need each other if we are to sharpen our faith and mature, if we are to find support as we experiment with truth. We need each other for encouragement, protection and the opportunity for celebration. We need individuals and groups to infiltrate existing local churches with radical discipleship and Anabaptist ideas; the call is to be subversive! It takes time and patience, but it can begin to happen. Truth always works on a bottom-up rather than top-down principle - as in yeast, mustard seed or dew.

    We should not underestimate the power of the model. Until people see Anabaptist vision and values incarnated in local communities of faith the values will not be widely embraced; others need to be able to "see what we mean". So the planting of peace churches is vital; make it top priority! There is no one single pattern for church in the New Testament. Rather, there are principles that can express themselves in many different ways. There is a real opportunity and vital need for people to experiment with truth. We must excite children with faith and radical discipleship; they are a central part of the body today and the voices of tomorrow. We have failed children in church and we must put it right. We must inspire them and learn from them.

    For such a time as this

    For Christians in Britain today it is unlikely that the doors of our homes will burst open with armed officers coming to arrest us. Is someone going to drag you in front of the local magistrate before whom you can give an eloquent defence of your faith? There is little chance that you will spend the night in prison at the hands of the torturer, or that in the morning you will have your tongue torn out and be dragged to the stake and burned as a witness for Jesus. Nevertheless, a challenge of equal importance awaits us all in bringing the joyful message of radical discipleship to our country. It is important to reflect on what we would have done in the sixteenth century, but much more important to decide what we will do today!

    The call is to feed on the Tree of Life with our roots soaking up the Water of Life. Then, as Jeremiah told us, our leaves will stay green, we will not be anxious in the drought, and we will not cease to bear fruit. However lonely, hurt or disillusioned you may feel, stand tall and follow Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Walk as a free, joyful, holy person through the church and the world, exuding the aroma of life. As Mordecai said to Esther, "Who knows? Perhaps you have come to [the kingdom] for just such a time as this!" Esther 4:14)

    Noel Moules is the founder and director of Workshop, a nationwide teaching programme in Christian discipleship and leadership which more than two thousand students from all major denominations have completed. This article is adapted from his presentation at the Anabaptist Network conference in Leeds in September, 1995.

    AT 10: Recovering Anabaptist Spirituality: Training the reflexes

    by Alan Kreider
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 10, October 1995

    Daniel Liechty, ed., Early Anabaptist Spirituality: Selected Writings. New York, Paulist Press, 1994. 304 pp. £14.99

    Marlene Kropf and Eddy Hall, Praying with the Anabaptists: The Secret of Bearing Fruit. Newton, Kansas, Faith and Life Press, 1994. 176 pp. £8.75; with cassette, £15.50

    As depicted in a famous engraving, the image is unforgettable: the Anabaptist Dirk Willems, safely across the frozen river, spontaneously doing the dangerous thing. He turns around and pulls to safety the dripping thief-catcher—who had fallen through thin ice—even though this led to Dirk being arrested and burned for heresy. What Dirk did was not a carefully considered action; it was reflexive, an expression of his character.1 God had so worked in his life that loving the enemy was not something he decided to do; it was rather an expression of who he was. But what was it that shaped Dirk's character? What was the spirituality of Dirk and the other early Anabaptists?

    For centuries people in the Anabaptist tradition didn't talk about "spirituality" -a word that would have seemed too Catholic. Prayer was something that was central to their lives, but to talk in detail about it seemed akin to "praying on the street corners" (Matthew 6:5), and hence, proud. In recent decades relatively few Anabaptist scholars have paid attention to the spirituality of their ancestors - partly because of the early Anabaptists' reticence and partly because of their own preoccupation with ethics and polity. In light of this neglect from within, it is not surprising that writers from other traditions have treated Reformation spirituality as if the Anabaptists made no distinctive contribution to it.2

    Two recent books, however, agree in finding a lively and distinctive spirituality in the Anabaptist tradition. Other researchers also are at work, whose writings will further illuminate prayer in the Anabaptist tradition. Thus we may grow in our capacity to understand and learn from the inner life and spiritual disciplines that animated Dirk Willems and the other martyrs.

    Leichty: a new translation of select writings

    Daniel Liechty's volume, Early Anabaptist Spirituality: Selected Writings (in The Classics of Western Spirituality series), is the more conventional of the two. It consists of a selection of thirteen writings by nine Anabaptists, all newly translated by the editor. The texts are fascinating, opening up to the reader the varieties of early Anabaptist reflection on the Christian life. Liechty's rendering makes them readily comprehensible. A number of them—especially the writings of Hans Denck and Peter Walpot—make a strong impression and would be suitable for group discussion.

    But these writings still do not help us greatly in our search for the spirituality that animated Dirk Willems. Another Dirk, Dutch Anabaptist leader Dirk Philips, reminds us of the problem. In 1556 he wrote: "Jesus Christ, the only son of God ... is the example to all Christians, ordained by the Father that we might be conformed to him. For godly character, which is to be our pattern, is perfectly reflected and shown in him. Therefore, all those who claim to know the new birth should have the character and nature of Christ and hold firmly to his character from beginning to end"3

    Dirk Willems might well have pondered this passage. Yet Dirk Philips doesn't tell his readers how to pray, or how to go about achieving the inner transformation necessary to live reflexively like Jesus. Nor do the other writers in Dan Liechty's volume.

    To be sure, clear theological themes emerge from Liechty's Anabaptists. As he summarizes their themes (pp. 9-14), three stand out. First was a classical theme in spirituality: the believer's personal relationship to Christ. To this the Anabaptists added the distinctive assertion that this relationship was immediate and no priest was necessary to enable it. Second was a central Anabaptist concern: the believer's life of discipleship. The Anabaptists believed that Christ was unknowable unless one followed him in practical and costly ways, even at the cost of persecution. Finally, there was a distinctive emphasis upon community. The Anabaptists claimed to know Christ through their life together with other members of his body.

    But how did the Anabaptists go about realising these themes? How did they pray, individually or together? The writings in Liechty's collection tell us little about this. This is in part because they are theological writings, not writings about spirituality in the classical sense. It also is perhaps because Liechty has limited himself to writings by "recognized leaders" among the Anabaptists, instead of drawing upon the less cultured sources which reveal more of the inner life of the empowered "rank and file" which made the Anabaptists such a distinctive movement.4 If Liechty had drawn upon Anabaptist letters and court records - not least those recorded in the remarkable source so underused by historians, the massive Martyrs' Mirror- we would know more about how the Anabaptists prayed. How useful it would have been, for example, if Liechty had included accounts such as that of the weaver Joriaen Simons and his fellow prisoners in 1557 in the Haarlem Jail: "Our sister Mariken ... is of such courage and good cheer, that she delights and rejoices us all. We exhort each other with the Word of the Lord, as much as God gives each to speak, now by words, now by hymns; yea, I have many hours in which I never once think of it that I am a prisoner; such is the joy which the Lord gives us.”5

    Liechty could also have devoted more attention to two categories of Anabaptist texts which give particular expression to their spirituality: prayers and hymns. Liechty includes two prayers by Hans Schlaffer; but other prayers are scattered throughout Anabaptist writings which can yield fascinating insights.6 As to hymns, the Anabaptists were reflexive singers, and Liechty acknowledges this by providing the text of six hymns, including two by people (one by Annelein of Freiburg, and one by seven anonymous prisoners in Gmund) who were hardly leaders. Through these hymns, multiplied many times, the Anabaptists internalised their faith and experience. These were vehicles of worship; these were means of telling the martyrs' stories; these were prophetic expressions of resistance. In 1552 the glazier Adriaen Corneliss was thrown into solitary confinement, "whereupon," he reported, "I immediately began to sing the hymn" based on Isaiah 59:14: "Justice is turned back, and ... truth stumbles in the public square."7 Far more than the writings of the theologians, the Anabaptist hymns put us into connection with Anabaptist spirituality and help us understand what shaped the Anabaptists' reflexes.

    Kropf and Hall: Anabaptist spirituality for today

    The second volume, Praying with the Anabaptists, is an attempt to shape an Anabaptist spirituality in our own time.8 The book grew out of a retreat on the part of a number of North American Mennonites, who agreed on the book's main themes and then commissioned two participants - Marlene Kropf and Eddy Hall - to do the writing.

    The book's format is simple. Each of its fifteen chapters begins with a meditation upon verses from John 13 - 17 and proceeds with brief quotations from a sixteenth-century Anabaptist writer. Next in each chapter comes the heart of the book, and the part which could shape our character and reflexes: the "Guided Prayer Exercises" which enable the reader to pray on the theme of the chapter. Each chapter ends with a prayer of an Anabaptist martyr in the context of his or her story. The book is divided into three large sections: "Abiding in the Vine", "Joined in Love," and "Bearing Fruit". These develop a threefold Anabaptist "rule of life" -"a vital, personal relationship to Jesus Christ", "a wholehearted, loving commitment to life in Christian community", and "joyfully following Christ's way in the world through a holy life of witness, service and peacemaking - even through suffering" .9 This threefold balance of emphases corresponds neatly to that of Liechty.

    Kropf and Hail are not Anabaptist historians, so they rely in part upon edited selections of early writings. But the source in which they find thirteen of their fifteen Anabaptist prayers is the Martyrs' Mirror. At times they quote these prayers precisely; at other times they find implied prayers, editing the texts to write prayers that are usable today. Some edited prayers may bend the original intent of the text, but in general I find them to be a valid way of appropriating Anabaptist words in prayer today. For example, Maeyken Boosers, burnt in 1564:

    Martyrs' Mirror: "My heart constantly longs to be fit in His sight, that I might finish to His praise that which He has commenced in me."

    As altered by Kropf and Hall: "O Lord, my heart constantly longs to be fit in your sight that I might finish to your praise that which you have commenced in me. Amen."10

    The heart of Kropf and Hall's book is its "Guided Prayer Exercises". Whether or not one finds the book helpful will depend on how one responds to these. Each exercise begins with the invitation to listen to a hymn or song on the accompanying cassette tape; the cassette is optional, at an extra cost, and reflects the importance which North American Mennonites have placed upon congregational singing as a means of praising God and experiencing his presence (the choral singing, to my ears, is pleasing, but I found myself just using the book). Then, after a Preparatory Prayer asking God's Spirit to grant a particular grace, the exercise leads the reader into a variety of forms of prayer. There are imaginative meditations, meditations on scripture, prayers of stillness and centering, listening prayers, and prayers of intercession and confession. These prayers can often lead to action. For example, a community-building prayer:

    Remember the gifts of love you have received through the body of Christ. Give thanks for these gifts. Ask the Spirit to bring to mind those failures of love in which you or your congregation have taken part. Confess your sin and the sin of your people. Ask God to forgive you. As in Isaiah's vision, imagine God's cleansing as a live coal that touches your lips and body as well as your congregation. Receive the words of grace, "your sin is blotted out" (Isaiah 6.7). In silence, wait before God. Is God asking you to take some healing or reconciling action? How are you called to respond?11

    It is fascinating to see how Kropf and Hall, not having an extensive literature of Anabaptist prayer techniques to draw upon, have borrowed freely from the strengths of others. The prayer for discernment, which could be especially useful in congregational business meetings, seems indebted to Quaker insights and practices. Elsewhere the debts seem to be largely to Catholic, especially Ignatian, spirituality. Kropf and Hall (p. 98) talk about these prayers as "spiritual exercises". Praying with the Anabaptists thus mediates insight in two directions: prayer techniques from Catholics to Anabaptists and Evangelicals; and a wholistic "three-fold" theology from the Anabaptists to Catholics and other Christians. I find this to be encouraging, a sign of God's providence. Certainly these exercises will help contemporary Christians - some of whom are having great difficulty praying at all - to pray in new ways. Over several weeks I have used these exercises, and they - like much Ignatian spirituality - have been helpful to me.

    Charismatic nature and social setting of early Anabaptism

    There are two themes in early Anabaptist spirituality which do not find an adequate voice in either of our books. The first of these is the charismatic nature of some early Anabaptist piety, which Liechty does not mention and which Kropf and Hall do not develop.l2 It is not that, in general, the Anabaptists spoke in tongues; while some of them may have done, tongues do not seem to have been apart of the prayer repertoire of most Anabaptist communities.13 But there was, nevertheless, an openness to the Holy Spirit and to enthusiastic phenomena which would be familiar to many contemporary charismatic Christians.114 It certainly was no staid congregation that could utter, "Praise God with shouting"15 - or that could speak fresh words as if from Jesus: "If I the Lord and Master am poor, it is evident that my servants are poor, and that my disciples do not seek or desire riches."16 It is important for modern students of Anabaptism not to filter out of the historical record the undomesticable spirituality of the early years. In terms of the renewal of the church and its witness today, it also will be immensely helpful when contemporary Anabaptists appropriate charismatic as well contemplative spiritual riches.

    The other theme that receives less attention than it merits is spirituality's social setting. In the Liechty volume, it is the Hutterian Peter Walpot who mentions this in his doughty insistence that wealth has spiritual consequences: not only does it fetter discipleship, it locks and "occupies" the heart.17 Kropf and Hall mention the theme at least by implication; they provide a guided prayer inviting us to consider whether possessions are impeding us from responding when God calls us to serve.18 But many sixteenth-century Anabaptists were keenly aware that prison and suffering changed the way that they perceived reality and therefore the way they prayed. "O dear brothers and sisters," Joost Verkindert wrote in 1570, "we now look through quite different eyes ... than when we were out of bonds; for out of bonds I could never pray to God as I now sometimes do."19 I wonder: can well-fed, well-adjusted Western Christians really pray with the Anabaptists?

    We can, I believe. But it will take more than searching for themes of spirituality in Anabaptist theological texts. If we, with Kropf and Hall, ask Jesus for the grace of prayer - "Lord, teach us to pray"; if we go on to develop forms of prayer that are liberating and antennae that listen to God not only in churches and retreat centres but also in the world; if we then venture out into areas of risk, oppression and suffering - then we may experience that growth in fellowship with Christ and his disciples which will transform the way we live, our character and our reflexes. Then we may also discover that Dirk Willems will become more than an Anabaptist icon; he will become an elder brother whom we, by God's grace, are coming to understand.

    Alan Kreider is director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at Regent's Park College in Oxford. He and his wife Eleanor coordinate study groups in the Anabaptist Network and frequently speak at churches and other settings in the UK and Ireland.

    Notes

    1. For recent discussion of Dirk Willems' response, see Joseph Liechty, "Why Did Dirk Willems Turn Back'?" Anabaptism Today 6 (1994: 7-12).

    2. Alister McGrath, for example, in Roots that Refresh: A Celebration of Refornration Spirituality (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991}, does not mention Anabaptist spirituality.

    3. Dirk Phillips, "Concerning the New Birth and the New Creature," in Liechty, 216.

    4. Hans Hillerbrand makes this point in his "Preface" to Liechty, xviii.

    5. Thieleman I. van Braght, The Bloody Theater of Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians (henceforth MM; 1660/1685; this ed. Scottdale: Herald Press, 1951), 566.

    6. E.g., Menno Simons, Complete Works (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1956), 955-58; also the prayers in Martyrs' Mirror cited by Kropf and Hall (MM, 427, 429, 430, 431-32, 434-35, 464, 467-68, 517, 667, 800, 826, 979). There are many more that they could have chosen.

    7. MM, 531.

    8. A review of this book already appeared in this journal. Anabaptism Today 8 (1995:22).

    9. Kropf and Hall, 10-11.

    10. MM, 667; Kropf and Hall, 65.

    11. Kropf and Hall, 82-83.

    12. See Stuart Murray, "Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement". Anabaptism Today 8 (1995:7-11).

    13. MM, 516, 790.

    14. Claus-Peter Clasen, Anabaptism, A Social History, 1526-I618 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 121-22.

    15. MM, 429

    16. MM, 457

    17. Liechty, 145.

    18. Kropf and Hall, 129.

    19 MM, 852, 761.

    AT 11: Conflict and Church Decision Making: Be clear about process and let everyone be heard

    by Nelson Kraybill
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 11, February 1996

    If you have been part of congregational decision making that left people feeling angry or alienated, you know how painful that can be. Good process and careful listening may not remove the hurt of dealing with conflict in groups, but they increase the likelihood of a satisfactory outcome. My first article (October 1995) dealt largely with conflict between individuals; the following article draws from biblical sources and mediation theory to suggest ways conflict and decision making in groups can be most productive.

    Acts 15 tells how early Christians faced a volatile dispute (whether Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved) and went through stages of group process that issued in a decision most participants were able to accept. Conflict in this case went through the following steps:

    1. There was a big argument. "Certain individuals" differed with Paul and Barnabas on the question of circumcision, and "no small dissension and debate" arose ( Acts 15:1-2).

    2. The church sought out a forum in which all parties could be heard. The local faith community took action, and appointed "Paul and Barnabas and some of the others to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders" (Acts 15:2).

    3. People in conflict had opportunity to tell their stories. The delegation of disputants arrived at Jerusalem and "reported all that God had done with them" (Acts 15:4).

    4. There was enough time to air convictions, feelings and perspectives. There was "much debate" (Acts 15:7).

    5. Leaders, after careful listening, proposed a way forward that took into account concerns raised by both sides on this issue. "After they finished speaking, James replied, 'My brothers ... I have reached the decision that we should not trouble [with circumcision] those Gentiles who are turning to God ... but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication ..." (Acts 15:13-21)

    6. The proposed solution was ratified by consensus. With the "consent of the whole church" the leaders at Jerusalem sent a delegation to Antioch to convey the agreements reached (Acts 15:22,25).

    7. The entire decision making process was handled with sensitivity to all participants, under Holy Spirit guidance. The end result "seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28).

    Actual events of Acts 15 might not have been as positive and pastorally sensitive as the interpretation above would suggest. Nevertheless, even by standards of modern conflict theory, the early Christians got it right when they brought conflict out into the open and gave all parties a good hearing. People in conflict want to be heard, and this especially is true when individuals believe they will be affected by decisions made by leaders or by the group.

    Be clear about process

    Perhaps no principle of group decision making is more foundational than the need for everyone involved to understand and accept the process by which the matter will be resolved. People are most likely to accept the outcome of group decision making if they agreed in the first place with how it would be decided. Congregations and denominations vary on process; some Christian groups make decisions "from the top down", with leaders setting a direction and others expecting to follow. Other groups work "from the bottom up", eliciting perspectives from all participants before moving toward a vote or consensus.

    Circumstances of sixteenth-century history predisposed many early Anabaptists to adopt "from bottom up" leadership and decision making. Persecution and geography made it difficult for centralised, institutional leadership to mandate decisions "from the top". Congregations often had to come to their own conclusions on controversial matters, as believers gathered together around the scriptures. Church leaders today facing congregational or denominational disputes would be wise to spell out to themselves and others how the matters at hand will be resolved.

    Leaders preparing a congregation for making a major decision making might, for example, propose something like this:

    1) for one month we will elicit as many ideas (or nominations) as possible

    2) during the second month a committee agreed to by the congregation will study the various ideas put forward and make a recommendation

    3) during the third month we will decide the matter by an 80 per cent vote (or by consensus or lot or whatever the group agrees).

    There are many variations possible on the above plan, and the length of the whole process should suit the scale and complexity of the issue. The important thing is to be specific about the process, and to be certain participants agree it is acceptable. Group decisions are strongest when participants also have opportunity to express their convictions and concerns. The notion that the Spirit of God moves through all believers is biblical (Acts 2:17-18), and Anabaptists understood this as one aspect of the priesthood of all believers.

    Give everyone a fair hearing

    The following are a few suggestions on ways to air differences in the process of decision making and increase the likelihood of real dialogue. These ideas assume there is a sensitive chairperson, respected by the group, who is determined to suspend judgement for a while and give all parties a fair hearing.

    l. Provide more than one way for people to be heard. Typical church business meetings favour group members who are effective public speakers and who are secure enough to engage in public debate. If this is the only forum for response, certain personality types gain a disproportionate share of power. There are many alternatives: questionnaires, voting, small group discussions with reporting back to the larger gathering, one-to-one interviews, sermons or written presentations with opportunity for oral or written reply, and "straw polling" (an "unofficial" vote just to see where most people are).

    2. Experiment with alternative group processes. There are many ways to get a group to interact on controversial issues without simply inviting persuasive speeches from the most articulate. Among these are:

    a. The Human Rainbow (so named by my colleague Alastair McKay). If there is a difference of opinion on a matter to be decided, the chairperson can invite all participants physically to position themselves at some point between two extremes in the meeting room. Suppose, for example, there was a debate about whether or not the church should renovate their worship space. The chairperson might say: "Imagine there is a line down the centre of this room from one end to the other. In a minute I'm going to ask everybody to stand at some point on the line. Those who strongly favour renovation, please stand at the left end of the line; those who definitely are against renovation, please stand at the right end. If you are somewhere in between those extremes, position yourself accordingly. There is no "right" place on the line; this is simply a way to visualise our different views. Nobody stand, please, until everybody knows exactly where on the line they will be. When I give the signal, everyone will move quickly to take their position."

    After everyone is in position, then the chairperson may give opportunity for people at various points on the Rainbow to say why they stand where they do. It is surprising how this exercise enables people to express themselves to a group. At minimum people can be "heard" simply taking a visible position on the line; often they are able to state a reason for why they stand where they do. On complex issues it may be useful to have participants stay in their positions for a few minutes, talking about what they observe about the group's convictions. The chairperson can also say "what do people at this end of the Rainbow need from your sisters and brothers at the opposite end?"

    b. The Samoan Circle (reportedly used by villagers in Samoa). Suppose fifty people at the business meeting. are divided into two or more factions on the church renovation issue. Fifty chairs are placed in a circle (or concentric circles) with enough space in the centre for a smaller circle of, say, six chairs. The group agrees that all discussion (for a set period of time) will take place within that innermost circle of six chairs. It may be helpful, to start the process, for one or two individuals from each side of the debate to present their argument at the inner circle. Other volunteers fill chairs in the centre circle along with the presenters, and amongst themselves they begin to discuss and debate. Anyone else from the larger circle, at any time, can join the debate by moving to a chair in the inner circle. If all chairs are full, people from the larger circle may come and stand behind one of the chairs already occupied. Whoever is seated there is under obligation to move out within a short period of time, when they are finished speaking. This method of dealing with disagreement (or processing difficult decisions) works well if everybody respects the rules (no comments from the outer circle!). In situations of high tension, this structure has the effect of slowing down and moderating interaction. People in disagreement have to look their opponents in the eye and be close enough for actual dialogue, with the assembled congregation as witnesses. Angry people are less likely to make careless statements in that context. Congregations in conflict have used this structure over a period of several meetings for up to eight or ten hours. Much less time may be needed for relatively simple issues or conflicts.

    Look for common areas of concern

    People in church decision making often take a position and seek to defend it ("I absolutely do not want us to renovate the meeting space!"). Good group process should help people voice the underlying interests that led to their position. For example, a pro-renovation group might say "We want to renovate our meeting space because we believe it will make our church more attractive for visitors and increase our impact on the neighbourhood" The anti-renovation group might say, "We want to use the money that would go to the renovation to start a day care programme that will be a means of service in our neighbourhood." In that case both groups have a common interest: to make an impact on the neighbourhood. Underlying common interests may take time to identify, but usually the commonalties are there. Look for them, and help participants in the debate step back a bit from their positions to reflect on underlying interests.

    Having identified the interests of both parties, the group then is ready to move toward possible solutions. Here brainstorming may be useful. A flip chart or chalkboard is essential, and the chairperson writes down all suggestions and ideas for a possible solution. The chairperson must emphasise that this is a time for any ideas, and that none will be evaluated until the brainstorming time is finished. The more ideas there are offered, the more people will think creatively. With many ideas available, the group then need to make choices. Seek solutions that take into consideration underlying interests of the various participants. Seek God's will by providing space for silence and prayer. When the group comes to a decision, write out the agreements clearly so there is no disagreement in the future about what was decided. Be prepared to revisit the decision again some time in the future; perhaps even incorporate a formal review after a trial period of, say, a year or two.

    Nelson Kraybill is an elder at the Wood Green Mennonite Church in North London. He and Alastair McKay work with Bridge Builders, a mediation and conflict training programme for churches sponsored by the London Mennonite Centre. If you are interested in mediation or training for your congregation, contact Bridge Builders, 14 Shepherds Hill, Highgate, London N6 5AQ (Tel: 0845-4500 214). Or see the Bridge Builders website

    AT 12: A Stubborn Misinterpretation: Jesus and the Whip

    By Tim Foley
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 12, June 1996

    Perhaps the most common objection to the claim that Jesus rejected violence is the story of Jesus cleansing the temple (Matt. 21:12-17 and parallels). The last time I heard a sermon from that passage I was treated to a drama which portrayed Jesus not only whipping people, but kicking and punching them as well. This makes for exciting preaching, but is it an accurate picture of what really happened in the temple? If it is, how does this fit in with the otherwise nonviolent picture of Jesus?

    The temple-cleansing incident seems to persist in popular Christian folklore as an example of acceptable violence by Jesus. Bruce Milne comments that John 2 "has been frequently used as evidence of Jesus' support for the use of physical and military force to liberate the victims of oppressive political structures".1 One example of this can be found in the book Unyoung, Uncoloured, Unpoor by Colin Morris. He supports S. G. F. Brandon's thesis that Jesus actually condoned the use of violence, but the early church whitewashed this in order to save their own skins. This thesis suffers from the old problem of assuming what it tries to prove2 and has been discredited as an accurate picture of Jesus.3

    Little comment from Anabaptists

    It is surprising that Anabaptist sources scarcely refer to the temple demonstration (I consulted only English translations). Menno Simons, Dirk Philips, Pilgrim Marpeck, Balthasar Hubmaier and Conrad Grebel do not mention it, although there is a reference in The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren where it is used to support community: "Christ does not want any trading of goods in his house; he wants Christian community. This buying and selling is a sign by which one shall recognise the false church, discerning the evil that Christ drove out on two occasions with a good whip."4 Thomas Muntzer refers to the incident as an example of the "sternness of Christ" as he faces the roots of idolatry.5 However Muntzer used the story in a sermon which invited his hearers to help the godly destroy the wicked and establish the kingdom of God on earth. This interpretation would not have been supported by the majority of Anabaptists and was used at a time when his movement was passing into its violent phase.

    Stuart Murray observes that Anabaptist hermeneutics were developed "in debate with opponents as well as within friendly meetings".6 It could well be that the Anabaptists rarely referred to the temple demonstration simply because the reformers such as Luther and Calvin did not use it to support violence. Luther wrote "this act of Christ cannot be cited as an example to be emulated", because he understood Jesus to be spanning the gap between Old and New covenants. To Luther, Jesus was here acting as a servant of the Old Testament, a "disciple of Moses" and therefore "in accordance with the Law of Moses he here resorts to force."7 It is interesting that Luther mentions the Anabaptists at this point, failing to distinguish them from Muntzer: "The devil bade the Anabaptists, Muntzer and the Pope have recourse to the sword, although Christ strictly forbade this to his apostles and preachers."8 In Calvin's commentary on the Gospel of John there is no explicit reference to the whip. Calvin thought that Jesus was purifying the temple "in order to bring back to its original purity the worship of God, which had been corrupted by the wickedness of men". According to Calvin, Jesus did this to awaken "sluggish and drowsy minds", to in some way take possession of the temple in order to give proof of his divine authority.

    It may have been that the Anabaptists paid little attention to the temple demonstration simply because they did not understand it, but knew that it could not teach a discipleship of violence. Stuart Murray points out that the failure to acknowledge difficulties in Scripture seemed to be a feature of hermeneutics both for the Anabaptists and the Reformers,9 but perhaps the availability today of other sources can shed some light. A brilliant example of this is found in the writings of Richard Bauckham, who interprets the action of Jesus as a prophetic act of protest against economic exploitation in the temple courts.10 He argues convincingly that the priestly aristocracy were plundering the people of God, particularly the poor. In so doing they represented God not as a Father who provides, but as a King like any other who demands tax. Bauckham uses Matthew 17:24-27 (Jesus' conversation with Peter about the temple tax) as background for the temple-cleansing to show Jesus' opposition to the temple tax (which was presented by Jerusalem religious authorities as theocratic taxation). In Matthew 17 Jesus gives the father-son relationship precedence over the king-subject relationship for the children of God. The sons are exempt, and "God does not rule his people in the way that earthly kings do".11 God does not treat them as subjects who owe him taxes, but rather he provides for them. Even today in the local church the Old Testament concept of the tithe is often used to persuade people into a strict ten percent giving, under a thinly veiled threat of "robbing God" (Mal. 3:9). This is not a Jesus-centred handling of the Old' Testament, and only results in the well-off keeping more than they need and the poor giving away more than they can afford - all in the name of God's rule over his people, just as with the temple tax.

    A social justice reading of the temple episode

    The connection between Matthew 17 and the temple demonstration is clearly seen when Jesus overturns the tables of the moneychangers. By doing this he "attacked the most visible manifestation of the tax operations", and so directly criticised the very existence of the tax and aimed it at the highest level of the economic hierarchy - the priestly aristocracy - who claimed to operate in the name of God himself. Bauckham's thesis is strengthened by the reference to the selling of doves. He uses a variety of Jewish sources to show that the temple treasury had a monopoly on the selling of doves because of the strict requirements on fitness and rearing which they imposed. This probably created a monopoly where the treasury could charge prices as high as it liked, making the most common sacrifice of the poor a burden to them in the same way as the tax itself. The idea is not that Jesus objected to the sacrificial system, but rather sought to fulfill its real purpose: "The scandal of the temple trade in these days was that the laws specifically intended to make worship possible for the poor were being so applied as to make them a financial burden on the poor." Bauckham uses the sources to make a similar case for the "merchandise" being carried through the temple courts, which were probably vessels used to deliver the other materials used in offerings (flour, oil, wine) which were also monopolised by the treasury.12

    When Jesus drove out those buying and selling in the temple courts, it is reasonable to interpret his actions with reference to the commercial transactions of the temple, rather than the worshippers themselves. Those selling were not necessarily profit-keeping themselves, but were the custodians of a vast economic enterprise with huge reserves of money which made the temple comparable to a bank. This made the temple an important employer and resource for Jerusalem, but one with little benefit for the many Jews outside the city. Tom Wright tells us of the temple that "its importance at every level can hardly be overestimated."13 This was the place where God lived, ruled and restored Israel by grace through the sacrificial system so that she could continue to be his people. The temple also combined in itself the functions of national figurehead, government and financial institution. Wright points out that it occupied around one quarter of Jerusalem city, symbolising its central place for every aspect of existence for the Jew. Thus at the very heart of Jewish life God was being misrepresented and his real relation to his people obscured, obstructing the very purpose of the temple and its worship. It seems most likely then that it was commercialism rather than corruption that provoked the prophetic demonstration of Jesus.

    Alan Kreider notes a second purpose in the protest of Jesus, to do with the location of the transactions. That the place of worship for the outsider (the Court of the Gentiles) was taken over by commercialism was a powerful illustration of Jewish nationalism and exclusivism which by this time probably pervaded Israel. Jesus demonstrates that the purpose of God was to include the outsider, "The enemies were to be loved, the nations were to be brought in."14

    A questionable translation

    Bauckham's interpretation makes good sense of Jesus' actions, but he follows most commentators in understanding that Jesus used the whip against people. However, J. Lasserre shows that the traditional translation of John 2:15 - which has Jesus violently driving out people with a whip - is an incorrect one which even today is present in popular Bibles. 15 The questionable translation is: "Jesus ... drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen" (NASB and similarly The Message, the Authorised Version, NKJV, NEB, RSV and The Jerusalem Bible). The NIV and Amplified have a similar translation to that which Lasserre supports: "Jesus ... drove them all from the temple, the sheep as well as the cattle". The point is that there is no need to include people amongst the animals which Jesus drove out with the whip.

    Lassere examined the grammatical construction used in John 2:15 (particularly the Greek words te kai) and compared it with eighty other occurrences in the New Testament.16 He found that in seventy-six instances it supports the translation of "sheep as well as the cattle" and not "as well as sheep and cattle". Even in the remaining four instances the former translation would be natural and normal. Lassere is quite correct to conclude that a violent interpretation of the demonstration cannot be justified. Even the phrase "driving out" (Mark 11:15) used in the synoptics to portray Jesus chasing people out, perhaps whip in hand, is a bad translation. The same verb can just as easily be translated "send out" (as in Matt. 9:38 and many other places). The fact that recent commentaries on the gospels do not refer to Lassere, despite J. H. Yoder's support and use of him, shows how big a part pre-understanding plays in exegesis. It would not seem feasible then to use the temple demonstration to justify violence toward people, as Jesus did not use the whip on them.

    Furthermore, even for those who disagree with Lasserre's translation the temple incident does not easily justify violence. For example, George Beasley-Murray supports the traditional translation, but notes that the grammatical construction of John 2:15 draws attention to the expulsion of the animals rather than the people.17 He thinks that the demonstration's purpose is to bring about the new era where sacrificial worship has been fulfilled. However, he notes that this is achieved not through the demonstration itself and the use of the whip, but through that to which its use leads - the death of the Messiah. This is why Psalm 69:9 is quoted, and the righteous sufferer is cited elsewhere in the New Testament with reference to the death of Jesus: "In all four gospels the event signifies less the action of a zealous reformer to purify the worship in the temple than an act of judgment that presaged a new and more worthy order of worship of God. That new order is achieved not by Jesus throwing the traders and their beasts out of the temple but by the death to which his action leads, and the resurrection which is inseparable from it."18 Since Jesus did not intend his actions to directly accomplish his purposes, they cannot be used by his followers as justification for force today.

    James Dunn is broadly representative of New Testament scholarship when he concludes that Jesus was not a violent revolutionary: ". . . we can be fairly confident that the revolutionary option was open to Jesus in one form or another.

    But it is also sufficiently clear that Jesus did not commend or accept that option."19 Jesus did not condone violence, either by example or by words, and so his disciples are called to follow him in this area as in every other. This is both a crucial demonstration of God's active presence in the world, and a precious realisation of our status as peacemaking children of God (Matt. 5:9, 45).

    Tim Foley recently served as associate pastor at Folly's End Christian Fellowship in Croydon, and is a graduate student at Spurgeon's College in South London.

    Notes

    1. B. Milne, The Message of John (Leicester: IVP, 1993), p. 72.

    2. J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus' Call to Discipleship (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), p. 47.

    3. N. T. Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1986 (Oxford: OUP, 1990), p. 380.

    4. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, vol. 1 (Rifton, New York, 1987), p. 270.

    5. G. H. Williams and Angel M. Mergal, eds., Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957), p, 67.

    6. S. Murray, Spirit, Discipleship, Community.- The Contemporary Significance of Anabaptist Hermeneutics (unpublished Phd thesis; Oxford: The Whitefield Institute, 1992), p. 59.

    7. J. Pelikan, Gospel of John chapters 1-4, in Luther's Works, vol. 22 (Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 1957), p. 224.

    g Pelikan, Luther's Works, vol. 22, p. 225.

    9. Murray, Spirit, Discipleship, Community, p. 96.

    10. R. Bauckham, "Jesus' Demonstration in the Temple", in g. Lindars, ed., Law and Religion (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1988).

    11. Bauckham, "Jesus' Demonstration", p. 82.

    12. Bauckham, "Jesus' Demonstration", p. 78.

    13. N, T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992), p. 224.

    14. A. Kreider, Journey Towards Holiness (Basingstoke: Marshall-Pickering, 1986), p. 154.

    15. J Lasserre (trans. 1. H. Yoder), The Whip in the Temple: A Tenacious Misinterpretation, Occasional Papers of the Council Mennonite Seminaries and Institute of Mennonite studies, No. l (Elkhart, Indiana: 1981).

    16. Lasserre, The Whip in the Temple, p. 37.

    17. G. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco: Word Books, 1991), p. 40.

    18. Beasley-Murray, John, p. 50.

    19. Dunn Jesus.' Call to Discipleship, p. 47.

    AT 13: The Church as a Community in Worship

    by Eleanor Kreider
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 13, October 1996

    "An Anabaptist congregation will exhibit an understanding of community that makes possible radical economic sharing, the exercise of loving church discipline, and the development and deployment of a wide range of gifts for the benefit of the church and the world beyond the church." - Stuart Murray, Anabaptism Today, June, 1996, p. 12.

    The Church as "community" is a reality many Christians long for, but it often seems difficult to achieve. Geography, poor transport, architecture, mental habits, traditional churchy culture - these and many other factors militate against the kind of genuine relationships we desire. Worship is an important context for congregations to build community. The following are a few ways in which the worship of a church can establish and nurture community relationships (small churches find these things easier, but even larger ones can do them):

    Learn to know each other in community

    • Use pictures and names to build relationships. One Sunday during after-service coffee a member of one congregation went around snapping informal photos of all the little clusters of people in conversation. The next week there was a big poster in the hall with everyone's name next to their photo. It was not an expensive idea, but it helped everyone - especially newcomers - to get to know each other on a personal basis. The children especially were pleased to be known individually.

    In another small church the children three years old and younger went out during the sermon for their own activities. When they returned to the main room for the closing songs and blessings, they were carried or escorted in with a special song: "Welcome, welcome Christopher! We are glad you're here" . . . "Welcome, welcome, Catherine! We are glad you're here!" The little ones then received a special prayer of blessing by the whole church: "God loves you. God goes with you. God stays with you."

    Another church - a much bigger one - has pledged that every adult will learn the names of all the children and will address them face to face. A tall adult standing to speak to a little child is not an acceptable posture. Adults will either sit down or get down to speak directly to the child. This may sound trivial or drastic, but it embodies an important point: in this church children are valued members of the community. The idea of learning names comes first because it is essential to building community.

    • Learn what others do during the week. A new pastor asked permission to "shadow" or visit each member, for at least a few hours, at their place of involvement or employment. He took photos and soon these decorated the entry hallway under the label "our church in mission". It was funny to see people in unfamiliar-looking clothes because they always came to church casually dressed. Our "churchy selves" are only one part of the picture. We need to learn more about each others' lives.

    • Pray, for specific day-to-day needs of members. Some churches forget to pray for their own members. If we know people's names and something about their weekly involvements, we can make intercessions practical and specific. One large church has a number of people involved in the health professions, a cluster of school teachers, and a lot of university students. Once a month, in rotation, they hold extended prayers after the evening service around the weekday concerns of these particular groups of people.

    Some churches appoint a "prayers group" to function with the same seriousness as the more familiar music groups. In worship meetings the prayers group consistently and systematically lead congregational prayers which include the members' individual and corporate work concerns. Churches who are only good at praying about medical needs and bereavements can learn to ask for and accept prayers dealing with a wider range of commitment and concerns.

    Prayer telephone "hot-lines", prayer partners, adult-child mentor programmes, service sheet inserts with prayer requests - these and other methods can help a church to pray for its own needs. Prayer is a valuable link between individual and corporate life. We need to pray for one another, both in worship and through the week. Praying together builds community.

    • Use notices to strengthen community ties. Perfunctory announcements of dates and times of meetings can give way to sharing news of what those groups of people are actually doing. It is also helpful to have "feedback notices" which remind people what happened in last week's events. Notices and prayers can converge. Notices might go like this:

    "The women's group convenes on Thursday morning at Betty's house at 10 Rose Close. This week they will be writing letters concerning prisoners of conscience. They have asked the church to pray as they prepare to write these letters, and especially to intercede for the safety of a particular prisoner (named)."

    "Last week our children enjoyed a day out at the nature reserve. Thanks to Sue and Jim and Sally who planned and took care of all the arrangements. One concern arose on that day for which we ask the church to pray. . ."

     

    Notices, prayers and shared projects of mercy and service - bringing these specific concerns of our humanity into worship helps to build community. Do we hear notices like the following one in our worship and prayer meetings? If so, our worship is getting well earthed into the wider community:

    "Are there four volunteers for Tuesday to help clear the site of the Jones' garage, which recently burned down'? We might not know this family personally, but they are neighbours to our church. They are distressed because they lost some valuable equipment in the fire. Let's pray for them and for the workers who will go to help with this job."

    Encourage economic sharing

    As members know more about each other's weekly work and family circumstances and as they work together in projects of mercy and aid, they can give support of many kinds - including economic. This might be in the form of a "koinonia fund" through which gifts of money are loaned or given according to need. In many churches money is a "hot" issue - an area of secrecy and control, sometimes of misery and isolation.

    We can work corporately at defusing the power of money. One of the ways is through worship and prayer, giving thanks for God's provision, recognising it is not only our brilliance and hard work that builds our bank account. We can study and pray on the basis of Jesus' and the early Christians' concerns that we be content rather than greedy. Sharing what we have and giving generously are not instinctive acts. But they can be taught, caught, learned, practised, enjoyed - and all of these may be encouraged in corporate worship.

    For example, there is the potent symbol of the offering plate. Sometimes the quiet, solemn music of the "offertory" gives a funereal impression: what a sad thing it is, to part with our own hard-earned money! I recently got many surprised comments after playing a jolly song as the plates came forward. We could learn from African Christians who make the offering a high point of their worship, giving their gifts with festive singing and dancing. Children can fully take part in such an offering, learning and dramatising the importance of freely giving back to God what God has given to us. It's fun, too - and fun builds community.

    The offering plates are sometimes placed onto the communion table. This action is a reminder of early Christians' generous and responsible care for the needy within and outside their immediate fellowship. Gifts in kind, gifts of service - many offerings could go into the plate and onto the communion table, incorporated into the fellowship of bread and wine. After all, the very name communion derives from the word meaning "sharing". Community, communion and sharing all tit together.

    Foster disciplined relationships

    Discipline means learning. Worship leaders should always ask, "How can we, in this service, help people to grow as Jesus' loved disciples?" It will mean more than going through a series of songs and sermons and then leaving it up to each person to figure out how worship connects with their life. Worship leaders present Jesus, worthy of our adoration - but also Jesus as our winsome teacher, the one who challenges and coaxes us on our disciple way. We are on the way together; common discipleship builds community.

    But it is for each one to approach worship with hopeful expectation. ( know a person who says, "When I go to worship, I always listen for at least one thing which will be significant for my daily life." Whenever Christians meet for prayer and worship, each one should be able to gain an insight, make a resolve, confess a weakness, or determine to take a step forward in their walk of faith. Every worship service needs a point for inner appropriation, for a movement of each person's will under the leading of the Spirit. There needs to be space, silence, and room for this to happen. We need to face up to our varying degrees of success in taking that step, or remembering the insight.

    Corporate worship can easily link with one-to-one relationships within the church, with spiritual friendships in which we are able to be lovingly honest with one another. When relationships are strong, honesty with humility can flourish. We will be able to give and to receive the hard words as well as the approving ones. We need to help each other learn the mind of Christ, and learn to walk in his way. Loving discipline builds community.

    Elicit and deploy many gifts

    Corporate worship is not the place for practising what we don't know how to do. The church asks those to serve the group who show the spiritual gift for a particular function. The finest pianist is not necessarily gifted to lead music in worship. The most fluent public speaker isn't always the best Bible teacher. Church members know these things. Ask them which person most enables them to pray; ask them who most winsomely visits the ill. The church discerns the gifts. The church then sees that the gifts are trained, developed, and accepted into the fabric of worship and service.

    A good check on this is to return to a church after a couple of years' absence. Are you surprised and delighted with the growth and maturity of gifts? Young people may be leading prayers and heading up service projects. People may be serving in ways that they didn't know they could do. The church is maturing and gifts are growing! Growing the gifts builds community.

    But spiritual gifts aren't only for internal benefit. The spiritual qualities and gifts which a congregation most needs are the same ones that the world out there is crying for: the merciful spirit, humility in careful listening, discerning God's prophetic word for a particular situation, a heart that mourns for broken lives, a gift of healing prayer. "These we can practise within the church. But they will spill over beyond the Christian fellowship. In significant ways they shape the kind of neighbours and work mates we are throughout the week. In our worship meetings we can hone our peacemaking skills, our disciplined corporate prayer, our thankfulness and ability to discern God at work These expressions will flow out into the mission that is our daily work and walk of life. We need spiritual gifts for the community beyond the church. Gifts of the Spirit expressed in mission build community.

    Every Christian congregation values strong community life. But I believe that there is something about Anabaptist definitions and practices which give distinctive shape and impetus to community. Community is not an optional feature; for Anabaptists it is about solidarity as we walk together. It is about survival in the face of testing. Community is about sharing bread for the journey. It is about sharing joy and good times in the life of God's Kingdom. All of these qualities are expressed in the worship of the church.

    Based at Regent's Park College in Oxford, Eleanor Kreider teaches, writes and speaks in the area of Christian worship. In 1997 she will publish Communion Shapes Character (Herald Press).

    AT 15: Adult Baptism in the Early Church: Some evidence from Ireland

    By Eoin de Bhaldraithe
    Originally Published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 15, June 1997

    In the report of the Evangelical-Roman Catholic dialogue on mission we read:

    A large number of Evangelicals (perhaps the majority) practise only believers' baptism. That is they baptise only those who have personally accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord and they regard baptism both as the convert's public profession of faith and as the dramatisation (by immersion in water) of his or her having died and risen with Christ.'

    Members of the mainline churches, on the other hand, are almost all baptised as infants. Unfortunately, this very often leads to mere nominal christianity. Scholars still disagree on the prevalence of infant baptism in the early church. Yet new evidence continually impresses on us how widespread adult baptism was. It seems clear, for example, that many of the holy wells in Ireland were the adult baptisteries of the pre-Norman church. Here we re-examine some of the local evidence as a Roman Catholic contribution to the debate.

    Patrick

    St Patrick came to Ireland as a missionary bishop some time in the fifth century. The date of his death is disputed: either 461 or 491 AD. He has left us two documents. The first is a letter excommunicating Coroticus, a British chief who carried away some of his neophytes into slavery in Britain. The better known one is his Confession which is largely autobiographical.2Those documents mark the beginning of historicity in Ireland. Ecclesiastically, they offer an even more important insight into the British church that sent him to Ireland.3

    Studies on Patrick continue to abound. Most recently David Howlett and Maire Brid de Paor have discovered the chiastic structure of the Confession.4 The work of Daniel Conneely sets his thought firmly in the context of the fifth century controversies on grace. So when Patrick tells us how in his youth he was dead in sin and unbelief Conneely insists that "we must interpret him here as meaning exactly what he says and not diminish his presentation, for an entire argument is built on it".5

    From the five passages cited by Conneely we may quote the following. "I did not believe in the living God, nor had I believed in him from childhood, but remained in death and unbelief."6 While he was a slave in the wood of Foclut, probably in present day County Mayo, God literally made him a believer. All this makes much more sense if Patrick was not baptised at the time. Indeed it is virtually incomprehensible if we presume that he received baptism as an infant.

    He prayed several times in the day and night for "the Spirit was fervent" in him.7 This means that the Spirit had come upon him now for the first time. Like the Gentiles who came to Cornelius, he received the Spirit before baptism. Then when he returned to Britain or Gaul he was baptised and ordained.

    Patrick came from a Christian family. He tells us in the Confession that his father was a deacon and his grandfather a presbyter. But at this time even that fact would not guarantee baptism. Augustine, who died earlier in the fifth century, was reared by a Christian mother yet she did not baptise him. Such was the custom at the time. The Confessions of both, then, describe a sinful unbelieving youth and adult conversion. As well as Augustine and Patrick, their near contemporaries, Jerome, Basil and Ambrose were baptized and ordained in quick succession.

    Columba

    When we read early church history without presuming infant baptism, many other possibilities emerge. St Columba, apostle of Scotland, known as Colm Cille in Ireland, died in 597 AD. Adamnan, his tenth successor as abbot of lona (679-704), wrote a biography of the founder in the style of the time.8 From it we get some insights into practice at the turn of the eighth century.

    Adamnan tells us that while Columba was still in the womb, his mother saw a vision which indicated that the child would be famous. There is, however, no indication of the child being sanctified in the womb like John the Baptist. Next we are told that he was fostered to a priest called Cruineachtán. One night he saw a ball of fire standing over the child as he slept. Then the priest "understood that the grace of the Holy Spirit had been poured from heaven on his foster-son". This statement would be meaningless if Columba had already been baptised and was regarded as having the Spirit in infancy. Rather, like Patrick, he was now receiving the Holy Spirit prior to his actual baptism.

    An objection to this might be that Adamnan later mentions another time when "the grace of the Holy Spirit was poured" on Columba. So perhaps the phrase could be used of a child who already had the Spirit. This later vision is quite different, however, as Adamnan says that the grace came "abundantly and in an incomparable manner" It lasted three days. The secret mysteries of the Scriptures were revealed to Columba.9 It was the culmination of his mystical experience. The vision of his foster father is most naturally interpreted as a first coming of the Spirit.

    The ritual

    In the Bangor Antiphonary we find a hymn, Ignis creator igneus', which was to be sung at the blessing of the paschal candle on the night of the Easter vigil. Michael Curran translates the last two verses as follows.

    You store up the nourishment of divine honey in the secret recesses of the honey-comb: purifying the innermost cells of the heart, you fill them with your work, so that the swarm of new offspring, begotten by the word and the Spirit, may leave behind the things of earth and soar towards heaven on carefree wings.

    Curran regards this as "a fine expression of the deeply experienced reality of the early church on Easter night". He believes that it indicates that at the time there must have been "a large number of candidates for initiation at Easter".10 The purification and the abandonment of earthly things by the neophytes could only refer to adults, not to infants. This precious document was compiled about 680 AD and so is roughly contemporary with Adamnan. This is the kind of initiation he presupposes for Columba.

    The Second Synod of Patrick is a pseudonymous document dated by Bieler to the seventh century. This is its prescription for infants. "On the eighth day they are catechumens. (Octavo die caticumini sunt.) Thereafter they are baptised on the solemnities of the Lord, that is Easter, Pentecost and Epiphany". 11 One might imagine that they were then baptised at the next major feast, and so before one year old. However, the parallel practice of the Eastern church shows that baptism was deferred to a mature age. This is also borne out by the holy wells which were clearly suited for baptising adults.

    Yet another text gives us some insight into the actual ritual of baptism. In The Alphabet of Devotion we read:

    In baptism three waves pass over a person and in these is made a threefold renunciation; firstly, the world and its pretensions; secondly, the devil and his snares; and thirdly, the lusts of the body. This is what changes a person from being a son of death into a son of light.

    This description presumes that renunciation is part of baptism and therefore for adults. The text goes on to say that if one fails in those renunciations, "heaven is closed to him unless he first dips into three pools", namely, repentance, discipline and labour. Dipping in the pool must be the equivalent of the waves passing over a person and so is a clear reference to baptism by immersion.

    A few further details of the ritual may not evoke as much sympathy from some evangelicals. The well or font was to contain living water. That meant that it was to be flowing rather than stagnant. It was blessed by a thanksgiving (or eucharistic) prayer. Then holy oil (or chrism) was poured into the water. Water and oil flowed away but the well remained holy or "blessed".

    After baptism in some rites water was sprinkled on the people as a memorial of their own baptism. In Gaul and in Ireland, however, the people drank some of the holy water in a ceremony reminiscent of Jesus' words about drinking living water. Christianity was first brought to Gaul by Irenaeus. He was closely connected to the community which gave us the Gospel of John. The church spread from Gaul to Britain to Ireland. Perhaps this is why so many distinctively Johannine emphases are found in the Irish tradition.

    Curran implies that the system of baptising adults at Easter was in vogue in western Europe at this time also. It seems that it was about a century later with Charlemagne that baptism of infants was first prescribed for all. This quickly became normal practice on the continent while peripheral Ireland conserved the older way of doing things.

    Norman reform

    A life of Columba written in the Old Irish language tells how he was baptised immediately after birth. But Maire Herbert shows that this life was written as late as 1150 AD at a time when the Irish church was striving to reform itself by coming into line with practice on the Continent.12 Infant baptism was one of these reforms. When the Normans came twenty years later they made a law that the baptistery was now to be inside the church. The surviving examples show that they were for the baptism of infants but still by immersion.

    The Normans had behind them the authority of Pope Alexander III who wrote to Henry II urging ecclesiastical reform in Ireland. The abuses of the Irish church are a common theme of medieval literature. Because it existed on the periphery, many older usages survived in Ireland when they had gone out of fashion elsewhere. What was universal practice at an earlier stage was now regarded as an abuse. This was the main worry of the continentals about Ireland.

    Pope Alexander complained that the Irish ate flesh during Lent and did not pay tithes.13 Gerald of Wales, who described the conquest of Ireland, claimed that Henry was ordered to ensure that every household in Ireland would pay one penny a year to the Pope, known as "Peter's pence". 14 The significance of this and other reforms was that they could be imposed by the sword. Because infant baptism was now the law, everybody would have to accept the reforms. In the earlier Irish church one freely embraced Christianity and baptism as an adult. So many people elected to remain pagan. This system the medieval papal church regarded as a great abuse. Today perhaps we are agreed that it is an ideal to which we should all return.

    Brother Eoin de Bhaldraithe, O. Cist., is a monk of Bolton Abbey, Moone, Co. Kildare, Ireland

    Notes

    1. B. Meeking, J. Stott, eds., The Evangelical-Roman Catholic Dialogue on Mission l977-1984: A Report (Exeter, Paternoster, 1986), 57.

    2 L. Bieler, Libri Epislolarum Sancti Patricii Episcopi: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1993).

    3. C- Thomas, Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500 (London, Batsford, 1981), chap 14, "St Patrick's Episcopate and the British Church".

    4. D.R. Howlett, The Book of Letters of Saint Patrick the Bishop (Dublin, Four Courts, 1994): acknowledgement to M.B. de Paor, p. 110.

    5. D. Conneely, St Patrick's Letters: A Study of their Theological Dimension (Maynooth, An Sagart, 1993), p. Ill.

    6. Conneely, 68; Howlett, 70.

    7. Conneely, 66; Howlett, 63.

    8. A.O. & M.O. Anderson, eds., Adomnan's Life of Columba (London, 1961).

    9. Ibid., p. 503.

    10. M. Curran, The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy (Dublin, Irish Academic, 1984), P. 63.

    11.Second synod of St Patrick, 19; L. Meter, The Irish Penitentials (Dublin, 1963), pp. 191-92.

    12. M. Herbert, Iona Kells and Derry: The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familia of Columba (Dublin, Four Courts, 1996), text in Irish, p. 226; in English, p. 253; date. p. 192; church reform, p. 109.

    13. Douglas and Greenaway, eds., English historical Documents, If (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1953), pp- 774-80.

    AT 15: The Pastoral Epistles Speak to Anabaptists Today

    by Lloyd Pietersen
    Originally published in Anabaptism Today, Issue 15, June 1997

    Introduction

    Much scholarly discussion on the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) has focused on the question of their authenticity. Predictably, many conservative scholars argue that Paul wrote them, whereas most non-conservatives would disagree. The general scholarly consensus, in what has become a somewhat sterile debate, is that they were not written by Paul. In addition, it has often been assumed by readers that the purpose of the Pastorals is to provide instruction on church leadership and organisation. The questions of authorship and purpose combine to produce the consensus that the Pastorals were written to promote a particular form of church organisation in the period following the death of Paul when the church was undergoing the transition from charismatic leadership to a much more institutionalised structure.

    I hope, in a series of articles, to focus on particular passages in the Pastorals (not least those which appear to marginalise women). For the purpose of this introductory article, however, I want simply to highlight certain themes which I believe are relevant for today.

    Comfortable Christianity?

    The debates about authenticity and church structure have meant that the Pastoral Epistles are not the books in the New Testament that people would instinctively go to for insight on radical discipleship. Many would agree with Martin Dibelius' famous description of the Pastorals as having as their goal "christliche Bürgerlichkeit" translated either as "good Christian citizenship" or, more pejoratively, as "bourgeois Christianity". For Dibelius, and many scholars following him, the Pastorals reflect a version of post-Pauline Christianity which has settled for a comfortable co-existence with the world. Furthermore, for many the Pastorals also reflect a move away from Paul's vision of egalitarian Christian community to a hierarchical and patriarchal ecclesiastical structure in which women are marginalised. The history of scholarship on the Pastorals does not prove a fruitful hunting ground for anyone who wishes to view them as radical documents!

    I beg to differ. Space does not permit me to rehearse all the arguments here (the arguments form the bulk of the content of my current PhD work!). My position, stated briefly, is that the Pastorals address Pauline communities struggling over what it means to stand in genuine continuity with Paul in the period following his death. I believe that the second half of the first century CE witnessed a battle taking place between competing images of Paul in Christian communities that cherished his memory. The Pastorals participate in this struggle and seek, therefore, to promote a particular view of Paul against competing claims.

    Unlike Dibelius and others, I do not believe that the Pastorals reflect a settled community at ease with itself and the world. On the contrary, the letters betray signs of intense strife affecting the communities. In Ephesus there are teachers in the community teaching a different doctrine (1 Tim 1:3-7) and advocating an extreme asceticism (1 Tim 4:1-3). As a result of their impact households are being disrupted (1 Tim 5:13-15; 2 Tim 3:1-9), and there is a suggestion that they are out for financial gain (1 Tim 6:5). In Crete too they are disrupting households and teaching for financial gain (Titus 1:10-16). It is not my purpose in this article to dwell on the false teachers; suffice it to say that the author of the Pastorals is profoundly concerned about their impact on households. To counter this he places specific emphasis on the household. The episkopos must be able to manage his own household well (1 Tim 3:4), so too must diakonoii (1 Tim 3:12). Children or grandchildren of widows must first learn their duty to their own household (1 Tim 5:4) and the church itself is described as the household of God (1 Tim 3:15). The author's concern for stable community, which has been rightly noted by the scholars, arises in my view, not out of a desire to conform or compromise with the world, but out of the specific circumstances which the communities addressed find themselves - namely the risk of being torn apart by factions within. Furthermore, the author's concern is that this internal strife affects the communities' witness to the wider world.

    Dibelius and Conzelmann rightly point out that eusebeia (godliness/piety), a key word in the Pastorals occurring no less than ten times, elsewhere in the New Testament is found only in Acts and 2 Peter. They note that the word occurs frequently in Greek honorary inscriptions alongside words such as "virtue", "righteousness&quo